2-969-936 - /Heritage Images

Officers and Privates of the Siege-Train (Royal Artillery) Passing Before the Queen, at Woolwich, 1856. British troops returning from the Crimean War. 'The pier was formally opened by the disembarkation of nearly 1000 officers and men...The band...played a variety of enlivening airs. Thousands of persons were congregated on the piers...and down the whole road leading to the outer gates...The Royal standard and the colours of the Allied Sovereigns mounted on lofty flagstaffs lined the front of the platform, and the gangway was tastefully decorated with the favourite red, white, and blue....On the arrival there of the Crimean heroes, the troops formed into a three-quarter square and admitted them within the inclosure thus made. They then wheeled into a similar column...the seventeen companies, comprising the siege-train newly arrived, marched past in quick time.... From "Illustrated London News", 1856.