3-028-442 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Easter Volunteer Review: early arrivals at Brighton, 1870. 'The annual Easter Monday review and sham fight of the metropolitan and home counties volunteer corps took place at Brighton, with the advantage of the finest possible weather...As Brighton is a holiday town, where Londoners are sure to find comfortable accommodation for themselves and families, with the benefit of the sea air and sufficient opportunities of amusement, large numbers of the volunteers and their friends went down either on Saturday or Good Friday...most of them arriving by railway. Our Illustration shows the scene at the Brighton station after the coming in of a train bringing several parties of the citizen soldiers, not a few of whom found their wives and children, or some other kindred and friends, awaiting their arrival. It was estimated that 6000 or 7000 volunteers had reached Brighton by Saturday night. A detachment of the Hon. Artillery Company, with their guns drawn by horses, marched in on Saturday...The sham fight concluded at half-past four in the afternoon, when the volunteers, whose total number was computed at 26,000, made for Brighton and the railway'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.