3-065-810 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches at the Volunteer Sham-Fight on Easter Monday, 1874. The British Army on training manoeuvres. 'Early Arrivals, East Sheen; Junction of the Middlesex Forces in Richmond Pk., Uxbridge Yeomanry crossing a Bridge; Richmond Park, Feeding the "Lions"; Waiting for the Attack; Opening Fire; Over!...The Easter Monday display of field manoeuvres on Wimbledon-common by 12,000 men of the Volunteer Rifle Corps, with some of the Guards, Royal Artillery, and Carabiniers of the regular Army, was a holiday entertainment for nearly 100,000 London people...The Northern Army was supposed to march from the north and west parts of Middlesex against the Southern Army, imagined to be occupying Croydon. In order to prevent the junction of the western with the northern forces of the enemy the commander of the Southern Army detached, to occupy the Wimbledon position, three brigades of infantry with artillery, who, if possible, were to advance to Richmond Park and to watch the bridges over the Thames between Hammersmith and Kingston...Colonel Stephenson's...first line at the outset was in advance of the line of butts...the battle was anything but over on the left of Colonel Stephenson's line, where there was a rattling fusillade going on'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.