NAM.2017-09-7-6-7

Photograph of four veterans of the Crimean War, 3rd battalion Grenadier Guards, posing for the image in front of a large sculpture of the Royal Coat of Arms, possibly the Tower of London, 1895. They sit outside in large armchairs, smoking pipes and having a drink. They are all wearing medals. A Sergeant Cooke stands in the middle of them, pouring a drink. The veterans are (from left to right): Pte J Sawyer; Sgt H Doswell; Sgt Albert Ablett VC (who won his VC for his actions at Sevastopol);Pte J Selby. The sculpture, carved by John Young, once formed the tympanum of the Ordnance Office's Grand Storehouse from 1691 to 1841. The Ordnance Office operated from the Tower of London, equipping the nation's armed forces at home and overseas, from the early 1400s until 1855. The seventeenth-century Grand Storehouse was destroyed by fire in 1841 and Young's tympanum spent the next century outside the Martin Tower. Young's sculpture shows contemporary weapons and equipment flanking the royal arms. To the left appears a fully equipped mortar, to the right, a cannon and field carriage plus powder keg and case shot, all set against a background of munitions' equipment, drums and flags. From an album of 99 photographs compiled by or presented to Captain (later Brig-Gen) Ernest Frederick Orby Gascoigne. The album is entitled: ‘Personal album E F O Gascoigne. 1st & 3rd Battalions - 1894-1905’, but covers the period 1892-1905; taken in England and Gibraltar.