Gunners of the Royal Regiment of Artillery resting in the trenches of Sebastopol, 1855 (c)

Watercolour by Lieutenant (later Major-General) Henry James Alderson, 10th Battalion Royal Artillery.

Alderson (d 1909) appears to have drawn purely for his own pleasure and that of his friends and family. His letters to his mother held in the Museum Collection (NAM 1980-11-54) include a number of sketches. Alderson served in the Crimea from 1854 to 1855, and saw action at the Battles of Alma and Inkerman, and the Siege of Sevastopol, in particular in the trenches with the siege train, the bombardments of October 1854, and April and June 1855. He went on to be appointed Assistant Superintendent of Experiments at the School of Gunnery in the 1870s, Assistant to the Director of Artillery and Stores in the 1880s and was President of the Ordnance Committee in 1891.