3-075-046 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Funeral of Lord Napier of Magdala: the coffin in the Chapel at the Tower, 1890. 'The ceremonies attending the public funeral of this distinguished veteran soldier and servant of the British Empire, on Tuesday, Jan. 21, excited the greater notice from the arrangement by which, as he had held the office of Constable of the Tower of London, his coffin was conveyed with a military escort from the ancient and historic fortress, where it lay in state that morning, to St. Paul's Cathedral, to be laid in the crypt there... the coffin was removed from Lord Napier's house...it was placed on the carriage of a gun, covered with the Union Jack, on which rested the cocked hat and sword and gold- laced sword-belt of the deceased...the body was received [at the Tower] with military honours, and was taken to the ancient chapel of St. Peter-ad- Vincula, conducted by the Lieutenant of the Tower (General Higginson), Lieut.-General Milman (Major of the Tower), and the Chaplain. The coffin lay more than an hour elevated on a bier, and every soldier and spectator silently withdrew when the bereaved wife and the sons and the daughters passed in to pay their last homage to the dead'. Sir Robert Napier, leader of the punitive expedition to Abyssinia, died of the 'flu. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.