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Abstract
Between 1854 and 1856 the shape of private and public collections of arms, armour, and ordnance were influenced directly by the conflict with Russia, especially from the main theatre in the Crimea and its key military engagements including Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman, and Sevastopol. While antiquities and some examples of militaria had entered private collections through personal travel during the first half of the nineteenth century, it was the outbreak of war with Russia that perhaps had the strongest influence on collections. The new theatre of war provided fresh opportunities to begin a collection or expand an existing one. Moreover, a greater number of individuals from all levels of society were given chances to acquire objects than hithertofore, from militaria to objets d’art to ordinary domestic items. Pictures and photographs were often the most highly prized, particularly of the time before war had started and the destruction of cities such as Sevastopol had occurred.Footnote1
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 T. Tate, A Short History of the Crimean War (London & New York, 2019), p. 111.
2 Britain had engaged in diplomatic exchanges of weapons with a number of European States, including Russia, between the mid-1830s and mid-1840s: M. Mercer, ‘Shaping the Ordnance Office Collections at the Tower of London: The Impact of Colonial Expansion, Diplomacy, and Donation in the Early Nineteenth Century’, Museum History Journal, 9:2 (2016), 158; W. Reid, ‘Some international arms exchanges, 1815–46’, Royal Armouries Yearbook 5 (2000), 148–58.
3 M. E. Chamberlain, ‘Pax Britannica’? British Foreign Policy 1789–1914 (London and New York, 2nd impression, 1990), pp. 102–7; Tate, Crimean War, pp. 13–17.
4 M. Mercer, ‘Professions and past times: the British ordnance office establishment and the investigation of Mediterranean antiquities, c.1800–1859’, Arms and Armour, 17:2 (2020), 157–77.
5 E. Sifneos, Imperial Odessa: People, Spaces, Identities (Leiden & Boston, 2018), p. 72.
6 S. Dixon, ‘Allegiance and Betrayal: British Residents in Russia during the Crimean War’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 94:3 (2016), 433, 437, 460-1 A. Slade, Travels in Germany and Russia…in 1838–39 (London, 1840), p. 364; R. C. McCormick, A Visit to the Camp before Sevastopol (New York, 1855), pp. 70-1. William Upton and his family’s prosperity, however, came to an abrupt end when the Allies landed in the Crimea. His property was looted, and his house occupied. He provided assistance to the Allies at Balaclava by drawing maps and plans of the region but was accused of supplying false information. He was finally allowed to return to England, and although offered some compensation, refused because of concern for his family still in Russia. A letter book (1844–58) of his survives at the Huntingdon Library, California as mss HM74299.
7 TNA, ADM 344/823; Catalogue of Charts, Plans, Views, and Sailing Directions (London, 1857), pp. 37–44.
8 R. Mignan, A Winter Journey through Russia, the Caucasus Alps, and Georgia (2 vols, London, 1839).
9 Alexander, Travels to the Seat of War….through Russia and the Crimea in 1829, II, pp. 180–92.
10 Alexander, Travels to the Seat of War….through Russia and the Crimea in 1829, I, pp. 261–7. The antiquities of this region are described in some length by an early 19th century visitor to the region, the clergyman, minerologist and traveller, Edward Daniel Clarke, who also sought to acquire various antiquities through purchase and other means. Clarke’s account shows how problematic that could be: Edward Daniel Clarke, Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Africa, and Asia (3rd edn, London, 1843), I, pp. 434–7, 456, 498–9, 503–4.
11 Alexander, Travels to the Seat of War….through Russia and the Crimea in 1829, I, p. 217.
12 J. Abbott, Narrative of a Journey from Heraut to Khiva, Moscow, and St Petersburgh (2 vols, London, 1843), II, pp. 45, lxx–lxxxvi; M. Mercer, ‘Collecting Oriental and Asiatic Arms and Armour: the Activities of British and East India Company Officers, c.1800–1850’, Arms and Armour, 15:1 (2018), 9.
13 W. H. Russell, The British Expedition to the Crimea (London, 1877), p. 363.
14 J. E. Alexander, Passages in the Life of a Soldier (London, 1857), II, p. 222.
15 Russell, Crimea, p. 136.
16 Woods, The Past Campaign, I, pp. 391–4.
17 Russell, Crimea, p. 322.
18 G. C. Taylor, Journal of Adventures with the British Army from the Commencement of the War to the Taking of Sebastapol (2 vols, London, 1856), I, p. 126.
19 Russell, Crimea, p. 298.
20 Alexander, Passages, II, p. 270.
21 Taylor, Journal, I, pp. 57-8; II, p. 59.
22 Taylor, Journal, I, p. 88.
23 ‘The Last days of Sebastopol’, The Irish Metropolitan Magazine, Vol 1 (1857), p. 381.
24 Kelly, Officer’s Letters, pp. 313–4, 321, 364–5. In Constantinople he also purchased a French sword: ibid, p. 283.
25 Similarly, in 1843 Captain James Abbot of the Bengal Artillery had expressed his pleasure at recovering a dagger lost in an attack on him, and by which he had been injured: “I was glad to recover the blade of the beautiful little dagger which I had used, the night of the attack: for it now had a history of its own. I had purchased it for ten guineas, from one of the royal family of Heraut. It was fashioned and worked as only the first sword – cutlers of Persia can make such weapons. The massive handle of a Hippopotamus tooth had been shattered by the blow, which half severed my hand.”: Abbott, Narrative, p. 45.
26 T. Tate, A Short History of the Crimean War (London & New York, 2019), pp. 109–111.
27 Taylor, Journal, I, p. 88; II, pp. 251–2.
28 Official Catalogue of the Royal United Service Museum, compiled by Lieut.-Colonel Sir Arthur Leetham (Southwark, 1914), nos. 216, 2109-13, 2342, 2637–8.
29 R. Bartlett & R.Payne, ‘Britain’s Crimean War Trophy Guns: The Case of Ludlow and the Marches’, History (2014), 653–57 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1468-229X.12068.
30 Russell, Crimea, pp. 380–2.
31 Official Catalogue of the Museum of Artillery in the Rotunda, Woolwich, by Brigadier General H.F LeFroy (London, 1864), pp. 27–8.
32 RA Admin PH A3.1782.41.
33 An Historical Guide to Leeds and its Environs (Leeds, 1858), pp. 16–17.
34 The cannon currently on display at the Tower is thought to have come from Sevastopol. Most Crimean trophy guns are mounted on similar carriages according to Blackmore. This cannon, however, was only transferred to the Tower from Portsmouth in 1942: H. L. Blackmore, The Armouries of the Tower of London: I Ordnance (London, 1976), pp. 143–4.
35 The Examiner (April 5, 1856), p. 215.
36 Illustrated London News (7 October, 1854), p. 339; Illustrated London News (3 March 1855), p. 208; W. Thornbury, Old and New London (1881), p. 86. Bronze bells from the fortress were also taken and now forms part of the collections of the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London: RA, XVIII.19, 21, 22, 23, 24.
37 J. Hewitt, Official Catalogue of the Tower Armouries (London: HMSO, 1859), p. 79. A wall mounted gun from Bomarsund subsequently found its way into the collections of the Ordnance Office: RA, XII.4623.
38 S. Barter Bailey, ‘Lord Dillon, Curator of the Armoury 1895–1912’, Royal Armouries Yearbook 7 (2002), 108–29.
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Malcolm Mercer
Malcolm Mercer is a specialist in Late Medieval Political Society about which he has published extensively. He has worked for the Royal Armouries since 2009 during which time he has developed further expertise in a number of other areas including the development of the Tower of London’s historic collections, the Ordnance Office and institutional collecting, and collectors of arms, armour and antiquities in the nineteenth century.