The Road to Waterloo: Inside the National Army Museum | Part 1 - Episode 23

211 years ago, on a field south of Brussels, a battle was fought that would change the course of European history.

To mark the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, we are proud to announce a new collaboration between Spink and the National Army Museum. 

In this special two-part series, Senior Specialist Robert Wilde-Evans and Senior Historian Matilda Greig explore the story of the Napoleonic Wars through some of the most extraordinary objects, medals and artefacts in the NAM's collection - from Wellington's campaign cloak and a lock of Napoleon's hair to the medals earned by the soldiers who lived through the conflict. 

History is more than a record of the past - it survives in the objects that witnessed it. 

Find out more about the NAM:

Facebook @NationalArmyMuseum

Instagram @NAM_London

YouTube @NationalArmyMuseumUK

Website www.nam.ac.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

On this special episode, I'm here at the National Army Museum. The topic of our conversation today revolves around the Napoleonic Wars. Of course, in our usual podcast at Spink, we have a few medals on display for you to look at. But this time we are literally surrounded by over 200 years of military history. With me, Robert Wilde Evans, one of the medal specialists at Spink. And I'm joined today in the National Army Museum by Dr. Matilda Gregg. No, thank you. It's a real pleasure to be here. And um so you are one of the senior historians, in fact, at the uh here at the National Army Museum. Um tell us a little bit about what you do uh in a sort of daily, daily basis and um how you came to be here.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yeah, that's right. I'm the museum's Napoleonic expert, uh, but I also have to be a bit of a generalist given that we cover such a broad range of the Army's history. We go all the way back to the English Civil Wars and then up to today. Uh my background is as a sort of cultural literary historian, really. My PhD um was on the memoirs written by Napoleonic soldiers uh from different sides of the wars. Um, so it's amazing to be working here surrounded by objects from this period that I'd studied. Um I joined the museum about three and a half years ago, and my day-to-day is very varied. Uh sometimes I do things like this, uh, and other times I'm researching our collections, helping to write the stories that go into our exhibitions.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

That's absolutely amazing. And um, and it's actually it's great fun to be back here having uh in a almost a previous life having worked here myself, um, pre-refurbishment, in fact. So it's amazing to be here in the sort of conflict in in Europe gallery to see all these things displayed in a new light, and we're we're surrounded by them. Um and I've you know it's it's almost impossible to pick out sort of one or one or two things that are sort of favourite objects. But and I know you deal a lot with um uh sort of memoirs and and recollections and things like that, but have you immediately got anything that that particularly stands out to you in terms of an object that you you either didn't know anything about before coming here or have seen it in a sort of new lease of life since coming here? Um what yeah, what is there anything that stands out to you?

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Oh, that's a great question. I mean, um again, sitting here surrounded by everything, it's hard to know where to start. Um I mean, I'll give a quick shout out to my favourite object, which is Merengo behind you. In fact, that's uh said to be Napoleon's favourite horse. Uh it's uh been almost consistently on display since the early 19th century when it was brought to Britain after the Battle of Waterloo. Um, and it's still kind of it's been part of the advertising strategy for the last 200 years. People still ask us, where is Merengo? Um so yeah, he's one of my favorites. Um, but I suppose maybe more on topic for a Spink insider podcast. Uh we do have, in fact, behind us, sort of accompanying us in this discussion, uh, an example of the Waterloo Medal, um, which I know you could tell me more about.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Well, you're very kind. And um I think sort of regular listeners and viewers of this will have already heard me wax lyrical on many occasions about the Waterloo Medal. But uh I hope there are new listeners and new watchers who uh who won't have heard me talk about it. And so, yeah, delighted to do so. And I think sort of going back to um sort of why I'm here in a way and why I'm interested, and um my my fascination with the Napoleonic Wars first started probably when I was about seven or eight years old, when I was bought a copy of the uh of the film Waterloo on video, um, which I I potentially heard that you haven't actually watched yet.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

This horrible sordid secret was revealed in the coffee before the recording began.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Well, I'm sure after this you're going to put that in the right. It's top of my list. Um But so I I watched that as a sort of eight eight-year-old and became captivated with the era, and the you know, the colours of the uniforms, again, some of which are on display behind us, the sort of glittering helmets, the weaponry, the and yes, you know, warfare, there's no there's no two ways around it that warfare at that time was horrible. Uh warfare over over all time has been is horrible. Um but the idea of how war was conducted in the Napoleonic period, uh for some reason stuck with me and has continued to be my fascination. And so in the sort of eight years now that I've been at Spink, because of this background in Napoleonic stud the study of the Napoleonic Wars, I really become interested in Napoleonic orders decorations and medals. And the Waterloo Medal, of course, is is pretty iconic because it's the first copper British campaign medal ever. Um it was awarded to everyone, from the Duke of Wellington to the classic sort of private Tommy Atkins of the of the Loamshire Regiment. Uh everyone received the same medal, uh you know, on the same blue and red ribboned, uh it was the same metal, of course made of silver, and each one was individually impressed around the edge with the name of the recipient. So a pretty groundbreaking thing that had never been done before. Um course medals existed prior to to Waterloo, but on very much a sort of case-by-case basis. Um orders of chivalry, of course, existed, but they didn't go to the private soldiers, they went to the senior officers, and that was about it, in a sort of in sort of layman's terms, as it were. And what I also quind find quite interesting is that the Duke of Wellington himself, whose um cloak and cocked hat, again, are on display behind us here, was pretty instrumental in the the creation of the Waterloo Medal. And going back to sort of your study of of um original sources, written documents of the period, again we were talking about this prior to to conducting this discussion. The the Duke actually wrote to uh the Duke of York, so Duke of Wellington wrote to the Duke of York, of course, commander-in-chief of the army at this time, uh, only ten days after Waterloo. So the Duke was still in Belgium at the time, leading the Allied army towards the French frontier. And um he had already decided that the entire army deserved a medal for their actions at Waterloo, which is a pretty amazing thing to to think about, really, that, you know, along with all the other things that he had to think about, um, and of course one reads about you know, in the the evening of Waterloo, he probably had a form of PTSD, and he's supposed to have, you know, broke actually broken down uh the the the sort of enormity of the task that he had just successfully overcome. And yet he sort of keeps going and he's thinking about the minutiae of not just leading his army, but that his men deserve a reward for for fighting that battle, which is really quite amazing to think about.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Yeah, in a way it's quite a turn of events for the Stern Iron Duke, from having said apocryphal, perhaps, uh, that this army was the scum of the earth to deciding that they, above all others, should be given this, in a way, quite innovative medal. Um also, I think we don't often think of Wellington as someone who was also deliberately curating his own legacy. I know Napoleon is very well known for this, you know. Even while in power he's commissioning artists to paint pictures of him in different ways, and there are different sort of phases of this, depending on what image he wants to project. Um, on St. Helena, he's also writing his memoirs, he's selling gifts to people, he's trying to ensure that he will be remembered in the way he wants to be remembered. Uh, and I think Wellington gets a little dwarfed by that sometimes. Um, he's certainly not as charismatic a historical figure in some ways, although his soldiers might have begged to differ. Um, but I think, and there has been some really interesting research recently by Luke Reynolds on this deliberate work that happens sort of at all levels of society after Waterloo to like embed this idea of British victory into the national consciousness. And I suppose if we're being cynical, perhaps, we could see Wellington uh starting to do that with the sort of um minting of this medal. Uh the emphasis that this was something shared in by his whole army. Uh it's an interesting change, isn't it? And I mean it's also significant in the history of military medals.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah. So, yes, so the the Waterloo Medal is obviously hugely significant, not just because it commemorates the Battle of Waterloo in this official way, but as the first official British campaign medal ever. And it's really interesting on that note to reflect then on the other sort of British campaign medal for the Napoleonic Wars, the the Military General Service Medal, which um of course is is a bit of a an an anomaly, because uh whereas the Waterloo Medal was was struck and issued within a year of the Battle of Waterloo taking taking place, so uh all those who uh were present at Waterloo by 1816 had by and large received their medal. So a great logistical challenge in its own right. But then looking at the Military General Service Medal, which of course uh commemorates those battles in uh Portugal and Spain during the Peninsular War, eighteen oh eight to eighteen fourteen. But also we can't forget, of course, some of the battles in other parts of the world, like, for example, Java and also the Caribbean, sort of Martinique, all that sort of thing. But that didn't come about until basically 1847, uh for and indeed wasn't awarded until 1848. And you know, it's astonishing when you think about then, let's say, uh forty years that have passed between the battles and the actions which it commemorates. And there were all sorts of other uh elements relating to that. So, for example, it couldn't be awarded posthumously, so the veteran had to still be alive in 1847, 48, and had to know that the medal had been instituted, so generally had to read and be able to write in order to claim write in and claim their medal. Um and it's just astonishing when you think about the process between these two, uh, and also the fact that you know there were veterans of Wellington's army, and indeed Sir John Moore's army, of course, Corona, and the armies commanded by other generals in other parts of the world, that you know had been fighting for years and participating in not just these battles, but surviving the harsh climates where, of course, far greater numbers of men died of of disease than really an action against the French. And uh and yet they had to wait decades for any sort of medallic recognition. Um, not really fair in the grand scheme of things, is it?

SPEAKER_03 12:11

No, and I mean there was um anecdotally a lot of sort of resentment and mixed feelings, I think, even by the Waterloo veterans who themselves received the medal, some saying they wouldn't wear it until their comrades or other members of the armies had got them. Of course, that would be a long wait, as it turned out. Um but yeah, just think about that. I mean, all of these, as you say, these grim, bloody, very important battles are happening in Spain and Portugal as well as elsewhere. Um the people who took part in them, maybe they're invalid at home, they don't, they're not part of the Waterloo campaign, overshadowed in a way by the symbolic dominance of Waterloo in the British historical imagination in the aftermath of these wars. Um, the peninsula, despite being sort of where Wellington begins to really make his name, these pivotal successes that contribute to the first abdication of Napoleon in the first place, uh none of that recognized unless, of course, you are an officer.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yes, absolutely. And and officers' medals are of this period are certainly amongst the um the more glamorous examples of uh medallic recognition that that have ever been struck. I mean, my one of my particular favorites is the Army Gold Cross, which is supposed to have, of course, um inspired the Victoria Cross that came that came later on. Um, and we have a particularly nice example of an army gold cross in a group in one of the cases nearby, um, awarded to a chap called uh Inglis, I believe, of the 57th Foot. Um tell me a little bit about his career.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Indeed, this uh this chap, uh Lieutenant Colonel uh William Inglis is commanding the 57th uh at the Battle of Albuera, which is in sort of late spring uh 1811 in Spain. And uh he goes down in the annals of history uh for supposing supposedly having said to his men to die hard. So a fantastic phrase that uh Bruce Willis would later steal from English. Um this is in the context of uh battle which uh is bloody, horrible, uh close packed. Uh a sudden rainstorm happens in the middle of it. Um at one point, uh yeah, um mass casualties on both sides. It's sort of a bit indecisive, although it does result in the French having to withdraw. Um and English is at some point shot in the neck with a cannonball, which in fact is on display in one of these cases near us. Um quite a sort of uh a bloody slash sort of what a trophy to bring out to dinner guests. Well, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

For those who like sort of more grisly elements of military history, uh but English is a friend.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

Um despite this, I mean he's he's taken off um to one side, but he refuses to leave the battlefield. He encourages his men to continue fighting with this famous phrase to diehard, 57th diehard. Um, which apparently they do. I mean, uh General Beresford afterwards, when he's describing the battle, says that the 57th had died in lines with all their wounds on the front of them. Uh so although this is attributed, this nickname, which um they begin to be known as the diehards, uh, like within a year after this battle, uh, in the contemporary sources. Um, maybe it's from English. Uh, of course, these things where commanders are meant to have said a certain phrase. Often it's hard to find the contemporary sources for that, but we love a good story. Um, but the nickname is real, and I mean when we think about what Paris was said about them, it could be also said that the regiment itself earned that moniker. Um, but yeah, we have his for this, and then also, I mean, he's wounded, he recovers, he goes back to more battles in the peninsula um and in sort of the border with France, uh, and earns for that his army gold medal, the two different types for different officers, which you can tell me more about. Very blingy. Um at some point for this repeated bravery, uh, you know, being um with the different clasps, it's transformed into the army gold cross. Uh, and we also have in this set um quite an interesting Spanish medal um given for Al Ghuera as well by uh Ferdinand VII, who is restored to the throne in Spain as a result of this war. So could you tell me more about the gold cross then? This is uh, you know, this is these are the campaign medals that general officers are getting.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, yeah, certainly. And I think the the sort of the army gold medal and indeed gold cross series is, as I as I mentioned, I think the most some of the most beautiful awards that have ever been struck to award those who participated in certain battles. And it's interesting as well because they are they're sort of like campaign medals, but also not campaign medals, in that they were awarded for participation in particular battles during the Napoleonic Wars, but they were only awarded to more senior officers, so generally, but not always, but generally from the rank of major and above. Um but also you had to actually be recommended for one by the army commander at the time. So it it didn't necessarily mean that because you were there, you automatically received the medal. Um so you had to have generally commanded your battalion, that was kind of the level we're looking at, commanded your battalion in that particular battle uh and done very well at doing so, or certainly could have done so competently uh in order to to uh uh uh uh b have some sort of relevance to the battle that is being fought. Um so there was a a small gold medal, which was generally awarded to sort of majors, lieutenant colonels, that sort of level. Then and that um had the the reverse engraved with one or more battles. Then uh that over time upgraded to the large gold medal, generally awarded to, again, sort of colonels, major generals, lieutenant generals, that sort of we're getting more into the general officer kind of rank. Again, but the same concept that the battles were uh engraved on the reverse and you could earn further clasps or bars. Uh again, beautiful examples of the of the craftsman's art. Uh these were all made by a company called Rundle Bridge and Rundle.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

Great name.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Again, absolutely. Uh some absolutely um such skilled craftsmen that made a lot of very good quality uh pieces, not just medals, but pieces in this in this vein during uh the uh the Georgian, late Georgian and Regency period. And um and then eventually the Army Gold Cross was instituted because it was relatively quickly realized that there were officers who served all the way through the Peninsular War, who were going to be entitled to a medal with lots and lots of clasps, and it was going to be a fairly ungainly and unwieldy thing. And so I I believe it was the Prince Regent, who with of course his great love of pomp and ceremony and and you know dressing up and designing uniforms and wearing uniforms himself, who uh in I believe it was 1813 came up with the idea of designing an army gold cross, which could be awarded to officers, again, I believe, again I may be slightly wrong, but I believe you had to have been at least a lieutenant colonel in order to qualify for the cross. It would have your name, rank, and regiment engraved around the arms, much like the Army Gold Medals had your name engraved around the around the edge, and each arm would feature a particular battle. And then again, you could earn additional clasps to be placed on the ribband, depending on the number of actions and battles that you served in. But again, you have to have done so entirely honourably and have been recommended by the army commander to receive this medal. And looking at it from a medallic point of view, this is of course interesting to look at who received what and what combinations of clasps and which medals were awarded to particular individuals. And so, for example, the Duke of Wellington himself has a unique example of an army gold cross with, I believe it's nine clasps. So you count the nine clasps plus the four uh actions on the arms of the cross, and so you've got what, thirteen actions, which uh which is a record unbeaten by anyone else, as you can probably imagine. But of course, the one battle that he wasn't present for was Albuera, so it brings it in quite sort of nicely back to to to Inglis. But it's uh yeah, it's a remarkable series of decorations and and and very, very attractive they are too, you know. I said they are they are works of works of art as well as sort of memorials to to to gallantry and and and ability.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

I mean it's an interesting sort of Of um offshit as we're talking about. Um, I mean, the look and feel of medals being important, you know, um, army officers. Of course, I mean, appearance is important when we're talking about army uniform. I mean, standards of dress to this day are incredibly exacting, very important. Um have you come across anything in your study of medals about the importance of how they work together when they're worn? Um, they need to be elegant, they need to not jangle in a sort of ungainly way. Has that ever come up?

SPEAKER_01 22:35

That's a that's a very good question. And that is also really interesting because as part of my job at Spink, I'm also involved in what we call our metal services uh department. So that it basically involves taking in medals that aren't for sale, that aren't going to be auctioned, but do need restoring, refurbishing, or remounting. So this can involve sort of family medals that either people know a lot or nothing about. It's generally one or the other, but also serving personnel who've just received a new medal and they need something mounting or adding to their existing group. And it's interesting looking at how medals have been worn in years gone by, because of course there wasn't actually an order of precedence set until the reign of Queen Victoria. Um so when one looks at paintings of individuals possibly from the the Georgian period, or certainly post-Waterloo, when there are uh a larger number of depictions of people wearing more than just one medal, you see them worn pretty much any way they fancy. And there's an example I'm thinking of the uh the Duke of Cambridge, for example, during the Crimean period, when he's actually wearing his Crimean campaign medals basically pinned to the collar of his uniform. So he's not wearing them down there, he's wearing them up there. And that's because there was no set order of precedence and he's decided to wear them how he thinks they should be worn. And it's the same, in fact, with the Victoria Cross, that you see the early recipients of the VC, and of course this is starting to come into the age of photography, where uh the Victoria Cross is of course the the most highly prized medal. So they're wearing it almost in the middle of their chest with their campaign medals sort of around it, and so you can kind of see where they're coming from, that it is the most highly prized medal, it's the most important medal they have, so it goes in the middle. But the idea of it going at the front, which of course is how this develops into today, you know, the most important medal, the Victoria Cross, or another gallantry medal, goes at the front of every other medal. That isn't really a thing that that we see during the Napoleonic Wars. So so again, it's a fascinating look at at sort of contemporary ideas of what do people do and how they do it. And it's at this time, it's pretty much however they think it they they want it to look.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

I love that. That's an amazing look into sort of individual agency in terms of displaying your own story and your own history. I love the idea of you know, almost like a circle around the major um achievement um control in a way of how you're presenting that history to people who see it as a kind of um visual shorthand.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah. Um you do again looking at it from the collecting point of view and and um getting things into spink that we either again do sell or restore or put into display cases for people and families to then take back and enjoy. If it's a group of, let's say, orders of chivalry, um, for example, that have some quite attractive enamel work, as a lot of them do, like the Order of the Bath, for example, or the Guelphic Order, or the Order of St. Anne, or St. George of Russia, um quite often you find them that the enamel and the arms are are quite badly damaged because they have been worn with pride over a long period of time, and they are alongside other medals. So, for example, you know, the Army Gold Cross is actually solid gold and and it's a pretty hefty thing, but of course the arms are quite sort of sharp and pointy. And so you can imagine, for example, the Waterloo dinners that took place at Apsley House post-Waterloo. You've got the wonderful depictions of these in paintings and mezzotints, with the officers in their full dress uniforms wearing all their orders, decorations, and medals. And so you can imagine wearing them round their necks on their ribbons, and they're leaning over to talk to sort of Wellington or whoever it might have been on the other side of the table. You know, do you remember the time when you did this or I did that, and the medals are sort of they're going to be sort of banging together, things are going to come off, they're going to get chipped, they're going to get lost. Um and so certainly when I'm looking at medals at Spink, uh a lot of people do say, oh, well, if it's damaged, has it lost its its value or some of its value? And actually, when we're talking about this, particularly this period of history, my in my opinion, there will be other people who do say differently, but in my opinion, no value whatsoever is lost, because they tell the story of that person, and that's that's what it's all about. And there's no there's nothing quite like it when you can again you can picture this in your eye, and you understand more about the person and and to whom they were awarded.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Absolutely. Yeah, not only it acting as a sort of doorway into this amazing moment or sustained series of moments of uh heroism and endurance, um, but also the person's life afterwards. This yeah, it may be telling you the story of dinners and um repaired. I mean, sometimes in the when we're in the we have a huge collection of military uniform here at the National Army Museum. And uh when you're in the stores looking at some of these pieces, you see the holes where the metal rims were. Like it's a another way of reading histories through objects. Um but also I completely agree with what you said about medals being, in a way, a huge aspect of their allure and their interest is the human story that goes along with it. And these can be, you know, it can often be that this it's an object that opens up an episode of history that otherwise might not be recorded. Um in particular, I mean, I think this might take us on to some of the medals from the Planet Wars that were not for officers, you know. What happens, you know, for example, so if the the field officers get these beautiful solid gold things, um, what happens to a non-commissioned officer or a private, a rank and file person at the same battles who does something equally courageous? Um there's no gold medal for them, unless, of course, unless, of course, um some of your friends take it into their own hands and decide this deserves a medal. Yeah. Um this is of course where we get uh this phenomenon of sort of I would maybe call them regimental medals. Yeah. Um these individual uh things sort of made by subscription from someone's brother officers or from the officers of a regiment. Um and all individual, all sorts you get different depictions on them, you get inscriptions telling the story of what happened. Uh and sometimes that's the main record. It wouldn't be in a memoir, it wouldn't be this person might not have left letters, it's not an artwork.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

And if they didn't live like live long enough, they wouldn't um receive the Military General Service Medal as well. Absolutely So that is their sort of one and only sort of physical recognition of that particular that particular act. And I think regimental medals are fascinating, and they are indeed a collectible element in their own in their own right. Um we've seen quite a few of them again go through Spink in in years gone by. Uh but we have, again, in one of the cases here, uh, a particular historically significant regimental medal, which again actually perhaps unfortunately, w was wasn't awarded to another rank, it was awarded to an officer. But I think his story is well worth retelling. And um he was a he was a young, young officer of the Third Foot, the buffs, and we return, I think, to the Battle of Albuera in 1811.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Yes, it's interesting to dive back into that battle, having talked about it from the point of view of um one of its commanding officers. Uh and we we don't actually have his medal on display. Um we do have the regimental medal given to someone else from a private, private William Bachelor from the same regiment. Um but this is of course is the story of uh then Lieutenant Matthew Latham or Latham. Um and what we do have on display, we have his medal, a gold, a gold regimental medal, in store. Um and then on display uh behind my shoulder is a quite glorious, massive silver depiction of the action for which he got this medal, uh, which was made, I think, later in the 19th century for the sergeant's mess hall. Um and so let me let me set the scene a bit for you, um, even though I know you know the story, but for the benefit of listeners. Um we're back at Elbuera, it's this battle um several years into the peninsula war. Uh I've already told you, you know, it's it's sort of fought on quite sort of bumpy, uneven ground near this close-packed Spanish village. Uh the weather is bad, a huge rainstorm comes in at one point. Um the buffs, the third foot, uh, are in this moment of the rain coming in, taken by surprise by a charge of French cavalry. And rumors circulate afterwards that perhaps there was some confusion. Perhaps they thought, not being familiar with the uniforms, that some of them were Polish lancers, they thought it was the Spanish, that it was their allies. Too late, alas. Uh, the cavalry cuts right through uh this regiment afoot. Uh, three-quarters of them are killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. And of course, uh the colours are in grave danger. Um, the regiment's colours are taken. Um, the ensign uh defending them is take is uh taken prisoner. Uh and the king's colours then also uh threatened. Um the ensign uh guarding them is either killed or taken prisoner. And at this point, uh this lieutenant, Matthew Latham, rushes forward, grabs them, and refuses to let go. And every time I I read that sentence, I just think that gives me a bit of a sort of shiver because there's something about this refusal. Um so if you picture it, I mean it's it's absolute chaos, visibility would be low, bad, ground wet, uh, the sort of thunder of these horses, carnage, and this man refuses to let go of the of the colours. Uh in depictions of this, he's often surrounded by uh French cavalry soldiers with their large curved swords sort of hacking at him. Uh, one of them hits him a large blow across the face that uh disfigures him for life. Uh he refuses to let go. As the story goes, another cut uh chops off his left arm, which is the one that was holding it. In response to this, he drops his sword uh and uses his right hand to hold the pole. Um so it's a sort of astonishing moment of just like grisly determination. Um at this point, however, there's uh a counter charge or something else happens. In the confusion, he's he's thrown to the ground, he's stabbed several times and left for dead essentially. But in the confusion, the French soldiers don't manage to get the colour, or at least we find this out later. When Latham is found on the battlefield by a soldier from the Fusiliers, who is astonished to discover not only that he's still alive, but also that somehow he still has the colours. And again, the story is very like whether he's somehow managed to wrap them around himself, whether they're underneath him. Again, we gotta, you know, put a slight disclaimer, the historian in me is like we've gotta, you know, some of these stories that let through time they are they are built upon. Um but uh again, he's survived and really um the story makes its way back even to the Prince Regent, uh, who commissions one of London's finest surgeons to sort of help with his facial reconstruction. Um he's given a commission promoted to captain, uh, and the funds are raised for this gold medal. Uh and I'll just add a quick postscript before we talk more about this medal that um you might think from this that Latham would have kind of developed a lifelong hatred of the French, um, having really met the sharp end.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Yeah, well, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 35:56

Um but in fact he settles in France and marries a French woman and dies in a French village where a monument is erected to him. And in this amazing sort of moment of historical continuity, this is in northern France. So in the First World War, when British troops are near there, you have this correspondence of some of the commanding officers saying maybe we should get some money together to restore his sort of um grave because it's sort of been a bit overgrown. And someone on the ground says, Yeah, you know, um he's a hero in the village as well. The villagers all know about Captain Latham. So it's an amazing story.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Yeah, I had no idea about that postscript. That is really interesting.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

Yeah, it's an incredible story. So, of course, it inspires this um silver monument. There's a a painting by William Barnes Wallen, I think, in the early the early 20th century. Um but so this is the kind of act that I suppose if we jump forward several decades, that the Victoria Cross, arguably, this would be a strong candidate for something like that. But at the time, there's nothing like that to reward the bravery of individual soldiers.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, exactly. And of course he was too junior to receive either a you know, companionship of the order the bath or indeed a a gold medal because he hadn't he wasn't commanding the battalion. So, as you you quite rightly say, he wasn't actually entitled to anything else that a more senior officer would have been entitled to get. So a specially commissioned medal was was the only option left. As you and as you say, and we see, of course, regimental medals going therefore out of use when the Victoria Cross comes in at the time of the Crimean War, of course, 1856, because it is now quite rightly something that everyone receives for, of course, the act of ultimate gallantry in the face of the enemy, because it's it it's about time that that that came about. But I think the Silver Scent piece is is absolutely amazing. I mean, as you say, it's a stunning piece that is so dramatic, and that you know you've got a sort of half a sort of an empty sleeve um you know depicted there hanging on to the colour, French cavalryman sort of stabbing down at him, and it's amazing that he survived. Uh again, you think about the sort of the rates of of again death through illness, disease, you know, that by rights he should have lost too much blood to to survive. You think an arm being chopped off and a horrible head wound. Um this of course reminds me of a similar story, I think, of um a chap called Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Ponsonby at Waterloo, who is a commanding officer, I think, of the Twelfth Light Dragoons, who a very similar thing happened and wounded unhorsed at Waterloo, and he left, he wrote about it afterwards, you know, being and it's one of the accounts that's really stuck with me in the time that I first started properly reading books about Waterloo, and he was sort of almost in the middle of the battlefield, and you know, it's it's muddy, it's horrible, there are dead and wounded men everywhere. He's he's wounded so badly he can't get up. He's trampled over by multiple cavalry advances, both by the Allies and by the French. At one point a French skirmisher comes up to him and uses him as a human shield, essentially, to to fire his musket from and apparently realizes that Ponsonby's still alive and actually uh strikes up a conversation with him, uh, before then saying, Right, you know, good luck, my friend, I'm I'm moving on. And he's then almost ridden over again by Prussian artillery, towards the end of the battle, who are again coming onto the battlefield, and yet is found the next day by a British soldier actually looking for a bit of loot, doing a bit of pillaging, but is really oh, there's a British officer there, and a senior officer as well, takes him back, he's operated on by the surgeon, who apparently I think, you know, uh lets actually lets blood more blood out of him, uh, and yet he survives and lives on until the 1830s. And these characters, again, absolutely astonishing. And and to uh I don't actually I do I have seen Frederick Ponsonby's Waterloo Medal, and it is, I believe, still with his family. But again, it's when medals now, whether it's this unofficial medal created for Matthew Latham or Fred Ponsonby's Waterloo Medal, one official, one unofficial. Again, they tell these amazing stories of of these individuals and what they what they went through. I mean it's it's just as much as any Victoria Cross could do.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Absolutely. I know. In a way, there's something pleasingly well, not pleasingly, but pleasingly grisly, I was gonna say, in a way that we, of course, have the luxury of saying, sitting in a nicely sort of comfortable room in the 21st century.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

But it's making me think, I mean, of uh another of the amazing objects we have, in fact, behind me is uh from another sort of water through anecdote, is uh the saw used to amputate the leg of the Earl of Uxbridge. Um plus, for extra detail, the blood-stained handkerchief and glove used sort of to mop up the blood during that instant. And it's another one that brings in, as you said, like it's another of these moments that shows you it's sort of a microcosm of all the other things going on around, not just the battle, but also the aftermath. Um because Uxbridge, I mean, again, I mean, I'm I'm telling so many of these, he's supposed to have said this anecdote on this, but uh and again I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna relate this faithfully, but there's a sort of wonderful telling of this in which Uxbridge is beside Wellington on horses, and you know, one man says to the other, you know, by God, sir, I've been shot. Wellington looks down and says, By God, sir, I believe you have, you know. Um, and it's all incredibly stiff up her lip. And uh he carries on this because he's carried off to a farmhouse and laid out on a table where the surgeon amputates, and he's supposed to have not even blinked, his heart rate didn't change, he was incredibly uh stoic during the operation, um, which is in in itself very impressive. Um but again, my favourite sort of comical detail, I suppose, of that is that the farmer then duly carried the leg out into his garden and buried it with full honours. Where it became, in fact, I mean this was respectful of this farmer, but also quite canny because it then became a big stop on the tourist trail post-Waterloo.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Indeed. So you had, of course, so many people going over in the sort of 1820s, 30s, 40s, and I think stopping off to to see the grave. To see the leg, yeah. Was uh was was a thing that had to be done. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

And the farmer, of course, would charge for this. That'll be sixpence or whatever, please. And I swear this is the chair he sat in, and it is a different chair every time.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

But again, it's this yeah, it's this wonderful snapshot of history, and that it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't really matter whether it whether or not it's a medal as such. It it it tells it tells an amazing story. It's a snapshot of of time. Um and yeah, it's military history and and the Napoleonic Wars, as certainly particularly, as we both know, is full of this sort of thing. You can find almost any object to tell a story. And one of the other things I'm I I'm really interested in, um again, that we are surrounded by, or it's very close to us, is uh the famous cyborgne model created by Captain Cyborn to tell the story of the Battle of the War uh Battle of Waterloo. And it's I think pretty much the first attempt to do. So on on particularly on a large scale. Which is quite interesting as well because of course Cyborn wasn't actually there, possibly much to his disappointment. So yes, are you able to sort of give us a little bit of background history to the model and how it came to be produced?

SPEAKER_03 44:19

Absolutely. I mean it's in fact we are sitting surveying the battlefield of Waterloo. It is opposite us at the moment, which is quite, again, quite a fantastic position. This model, which is massive, and I I encourage you to come see it in person, is an exact topographic topographical um reproduction of the landscape. It is huge, and I think people have, if you it matches up to modern maps, it's an incredible undertaking. Um Cyborn based it on an incredible amount of firsthand and like research. He wrote to all of the officers involved. In fact, there's a printed, you can see um printed copies of the letters sent back to him. So he gathered all of this information. He was interested in where everybody was trying to gather the most exact positions. Um so it's an incredible life's work, but it's also quite a tragic story because although when he started the work, Wellington was happy to support it, that financial support was later withdrawn or ran out, and Cyborn ended up finishing it all with his own money and died destitute. Um and so that is kind of a um, I'm not sure he saw it reach the sort of success that he hoped with this real passion project. And it is a passion project because the the detail is incredible when you it's all very small scale. I don't know exactly what the scale ratio is. Um, but we have on display also in the cases, you can come and see up close some of the models themselves. And although tiny, the amount of sort of care and detail that's gone into them. I mean, I think there's over 70,000 individual figurines on this battlefield. Some of them, they're all they're painted, some of them are cast by jewelers. Uh some of them have moving arms and the wheels of carriages move. It really is, I mean, it puts like contemporary war gamers to shame in some ways. Um but yeah, it depicts the battlefield, I think, at about 7:45 p.m. Uh, in the evening of the battle. Uh, and it shows you the lines drawn up, Wellington's lines behind the ridge. I think it must show the Imperial Guard making their advance, uh, the different, the other farmhouses and the places where other fighting was happening. And then, of course, the final grand controversy: where are the Prussians? They are depicted on the map, but again, legend has it uh that there are not as many as there should be for this point. And again, uh we're coming back to casting aspersions on the Duke of Wellington. But it is said that when the Duke visited it, he may have put a few in his pocket in order to diminish the role of his allies in later years after the battle. But again, that's all that's all hearsay.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

It's it's a it's a fascinating thing, isn't it? And and I think you're quite right in that certainly his Cyborg's original idea was a sort of one-to-one scale depiction in that every m every m individual soldier represented an individual soldier on the battlefield that day. So again, um I may be again, or slightly I may be slightly out with that. I must admit it's been a little while since I have last read up on on the model itself, but we're certainly getting to that scale, which is which is amazing um when you think about it. And and I know there was a great interest in that in the post-Waterloo world to show off exhibits and for for museums to show objects to people, for people to recount their stories of where they were that day, what they did, for um again, I can't r recall if this was the case, that it was uh Cyborne, his original idea was for it to be a travelling exhibition, and possibly was it found years ago, I think, in a in sort of I have vague recollections of a sort of a barn in Ireland or something like that. Or that was the again, I may be wrong here, you might be able to put me right, but I have a have a feeling that it was supposed to travel around the United Kingdom to to again that he was gonna charge money for people to see it, but that didn't quite work out.

SPEAKER_03 48:33

I I'm not absolutely clear on the details of the the early history, um, although I think definitely through other I mean it's quite it's sort of takes him decades. And I think, you know, at points of sort of diminishing finances, he has multiple ideas of how he's gonna make it work. Poor, poor man. Um and you're right, this does come within a sort of setting of people making sort of money making around this in all of these different ways. I mean, if I'd be permitted a sort of um tangent again to my favourite Merengo, I mean, when he's brought to Britain, he has a stint on Pal Mall um sort of being like held there for people to come and see, and there's all these adverts in the newspapers, and he's also advertising, you know, someone's brand of horseshoes. Like it's his sort of living advertising space. By Merengo horseshoes. Literally, literally, maybe not that brand, but yeah, um endorsed by Morengo. Um But he, you know, some of my favourite uh coverage of that is that you know, they say he's so despite being this fearsome, suppose this fearsome war horse, although really that's not his role, his role is to carry Napoleon around the battle. Uh he is timid enough that even the most um sort of shy lady may approach. He's very gentle. So it's this real sort of like British public enthusiasm for seeing, touching, sort of almost owning like relics of this great threat to British sort of military superiority. Um and so to go back to the cyber model, I mean, what happens to it eventually is that it ends up at the Royal United Services Museum on in Whitehall, um, from which in fact we have inherited many items. And of course, the Russian institute itself is still um very much sort of functioning, but uh the museum was closed in 1960, and then many of the objects came to the National Army Museum. So uh in fact, a lot of them you can trace the provenance very far back. You can see I mean, so if you do come to the museum and you look at the uh model, while it may not have been travelling around the UK, you will also be standing in the shoes of Victorian tourists in the centre of London, similarly looking at it. So exhibit the window back into the past.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Absolutely, which is again it is a great way of looking at history in it in its own right, as well as yeah, yeah, thinking about commemoration and and dedication as well as you know, the individuals themselves and what they were what they were doing at the time and and where they went and and what they did. Um, which I think is yeah, it's it's absolutely astonishing. We hope you enjoyed part one, and please do join us for part two of our conversation.