'Charles Aldis, of the Royal College of Surgeons', 1819

Lithograph by and after T Wageman, published by C Hinton, London, 1819.

Captioned, 'Member of the Medical and Philosophical Societies in London; Senior Surgeon to the New Finsbury Dispensary; Surgeon Inspector to the National Union Life Association; Late Surgeon for Prisoners of War at the Depot Norman Cross Barracks'.

In the late 1790s Charles Aldis (1776-1863) served as surgeon to the sick and wounded prisoners of war at Norman Cross Prison and Barracks, Huntingdonshire (now in Cambridgeshire). Norman Cross 'Depot' was a purpose built prisoner of war camp and barracks designed to hold thousands of predominantly French and Dutch prisoners of war, captured during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). Over 1,700 prisoners died at Norman Cross, the majority of them during a typhus outbreak in 1800. Much of the facility was demolished in 1816 but some structures remain along with a memorial to the prisoners who died there.