3-070-753 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Departure of the Scots Guards from London for Ireland, 1881. Crowds cheering British soldiers. 'Her Majesty's Government have lately thought it needful to send large military reinforcements to uphold the administration of the law in Ireland, which has been so greatly prejudiced and obstructed by the Land League agitation...The advance party left Wellington Barracks...on the Sunday evening...The remainder of the battalion, on the Monday evening, marched out of barracks to the Victoria Station, and were conveyed, by the West London Railway, from Clapham Junction to Willesden, where they got upon the London and North-Western line. They mustered 671 rank and file, with thirty officers...Headed by the band of the Coldstream Guards, they marched to Victoria Station, where an immense crowd assembled and cheered the troops. They took their places in two trains of the London and North-Western Company,...the band playing "God Save the Queen" and the men cheering lustily'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.