3-028-626 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Easter Volunteer Review: a sketch on the Brighton Beach, 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, or the previous Thursday evening, some of the corps marching by the high road from London, but most of them arriving by [the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway]...It was estimated that 6000 or 7000 volunteers had reached Brighton by Saturday night...The beach opposite the town was continually thronged; and the boatmen and the keepers of refreshment-saloons made a pretty good profit of the occasion'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.