2-969-836 - /Heritage Images

Reception of Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons at Christchurch, 1856. '...the streets of Christchurch were filled with visitors...assembled to do honour to its illustrious townsman...On the High-bridge...there was a halt beneath a turreted arch, which bore the words: "To the age a defence, to posterity an honourable name."...[Sir Edmund said]...he could assure them that both soldiers and sailors, officers as well as men, who were abroad in their country's service, were sustained by nothing so much as by the approbation of their countrymen at home...He had no doubt all present had contributed something towards the comfort of the soldiers before Sebastopol [in the Crimea] last winter. If they had witnessed the effect produced, as he had done, by their considerate liberality they would have been amply rewarded'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.