1855 Gallery

1855 Punch Dinosaurs Crystal Palace

1855 Cartoon from Punch's Almanac of that year, ascribed to John Leech. "A visit to the antediluvian reptiles at Sydenham - master Tom strongly objects to having his mind improved". Clockwise from top; Iguanodon (with bird on its wrongly ascribed horn), Megalosaurus, Hylaeosaurus, prehistoric gharial (teleosaurus), ichthyosaur. The actual exhibits were designed to fit the victorian ideal of educating the masses. They were the work of artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (based on the research of Owen, Mantell, Buckland, Conybeare and others). The Crystal Palace Antediluvians were the first life-size reconstructions of dinosaurs, and this cartoon indicates that many saw them as nightmarish monsters of a former age. Children would love dinosaurs ever after

© This image is Paul D. Stewart 2009. Do not reproduce without permission of the photographer at Stewartpauld@aol.com

Manchester Warehousemen Orphan Schools, Cheadle Hulme

The Manchester Warehousemen Orphan Schools, on Claremont Road, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire. The school was founded in 1855 by a group of Manchester businessmen to care for and educate orphans and necessitous children'. The Claremont Road building was opened in 1869. The school is now known as Cheadle Hulme School

© Mary Evans Picture Library 2015 - https://copyrighthub.org/s0/hub1/creation/maryevans/MaryEvansPictureID/10418899

Colonel James Skinner holding a Regimental Durbar

Colonel James Skinner holding a Regimental Durbar, 1827.Watercolour with gouache on European paper by Ghulam Ali Khan (fl 1817-1855), 1827.Inscribed in Nastaliq script lower left ?The work of Ghulam Ali Khan the painter, resident of the Seat of the Empire Shahjahanabad, it was completed in the Christian year 1827?Skinner, seated centre left, may be seen presiding over a durbar of his regiment, an occasion when any soldier was at liberty to raise with his commanding officer anything that concerned him. The holding of a durbar, when Skinner mixed freely with his soldiers and men, was a conscious re-creation of Afghan and Mughal military and ceremonial traditions, which gave his soldiers a corporate sense of their upward mobility in the Company's service.The son of a Scottish officer of the Bengal Army and a Rajput girl whom he had captured during the war against the Raja of Benares, James Skinner's (1778-1841) military career commenced with eight years service in the part European officered Maratha army. In 1803 when war broke out between the British and the Marathas he obliged to leave their service and after their defeat was made commander of 800 horsemen who joined the British. Such were the origins of what was to become the senior regiment of the Indian cavalry, Skinner's Horse (1st Duke of York's Own Cavalry). In 1827 the regiment was known as the 1st Regiment of Local Horse and had just been awarded the battle honour Bhurtpore for its part in the reduction of the fortress at Bharatpur, Skinner himself being made a Companion of the Order of the Bath. Skinner was well aware that on more than one occasion, racial prejudice against Eurasion officers had interfered with his advancement in the Company's service - counterbalanced only by his employers awareness of the important part he and his men played in their military build up, providing the light cavalry needed so urgently to fight the Pindaris and Marathas, and later settling conquered territory. In the lat

© The National Army Museum / Mary Evans Picture Library