The first photograph of a man from the 34th Foot

Private Clemence Brophy, of the 34th Regiment of Foot, seated with his pipe against a wall at Fort Pitt Military Hospital, Chatham, Kent in 1857. Private Brophy was born in Kilkenny, Ireland and joined the British Army, aged 21, on 21 December 1847.

The photograph by Robert Howlett is in the Royal Collection

A visit by the Queen

He was one of the wounded veterans seen by Queen Victoria at Chatham Military Hospital. Following her visit to the hospital she commissioned a series of photographs of the veterans from the photographer Joseph Cundall and his publisher Robert Howlett.

The Queen wrote in her journal for 16 April 1856:

"The other case was Clemence Brophy 34th Regt whose left arm, shoulder, & shoulder blade had been removed, but he recovered! The enormous wound was entirely healed."

Brophy had been awarded a Good Conduct Medal. He was wounded in 1855 and was discharged from military service on 29 May 1856, as being “Unfit for further service.”

Artistic comment

The 'Art Journal' and 'The Critic' praised Cundall and Howlett’s ‘Crimean Heroes’ series, but only 'The Critic' comments on the photographs of the Crimean wounded, although simply in order to approve of Howlett’s use of light and shade (The Critic, 15 January 1857). The absence of any comment on the subjects of the photograph to us is odd, but is a measure of the public attitudes at the time.

The Queen secured employment for a small number of individuals in the Office of Works and the Royal Parks, as well as giving occasional cash bounties.

Thirty years later the 34th Foot became the 1st Battalion of The Border Regiment.

The Editor