2-969-978 - /Heritage Images

Firing of the Tower Guns [after peace is declared], 1856. Celebrating the end of the Crimean War at the Tower of London: '...intelligence reached London that an hour before the anxious work of negotiation was consummated, and that all the Great Powers of Europe, with Sardinia and Turkey, were once more united in a solemn Act of Peace...The Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, Viscount Hardinge...issued an order that the news of the signing of Peace at Paris was to be announced, both at St. James's-park and at the Tower, by the firing of 101 guns...At ten o 'clock precisely the firing commenced. The effect of the unaccustomed sounds breaking the peculiar stillness of Sunday night in London, and associated with an event of deepest concern, was solemn in its character'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.