3-017-305 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Funeral, on Sunday last, of Sergeant Dransfield, R.E., instructor to the 1st Tower Hamlets Engineer Volunteers, 1865. '...a few days ago, in Victoria Park [in East London],...Sergeant Dransfield, of the Royal Engineers, while performing his duties as instructor to the 1st Tower Hamlets Volunteer Engineers, was killed by the premature explosion of a mine...His funeral, last Sunday, in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery, Bow, was attended with military honours...Every member of the corps wore a band of crape on the left arm...The officers wore a black sash, a band, with a bow of crape, round the busby, black gloves, and the grenade and sword-knot covered with crape...The coffin was conveyed to the grave on a gun-carriage, drawn by four black horses. It bore the inscription, "William Lewis Dransfield. Died Oct. 6, 1865, Aged 34 years."...the coffin was covered with a black pall edged with white; over this was spread the union jack...As might have been expected, the volunteer force was very strongly represented, almost every metropolitan corps sending its complement...The route was lined by thousands of spectators...A military salute was fired by a company of deceased's comrades'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.