Commemorating the Battle of Waterloo in Great Britain,1815-1852
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Date
22/06/2022Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
22/06/2023Author
Tonks, Clare L.
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Abstract
This thesis analyses the range of practices that developed to commemorate the Battle
of Waterloo in nineteenth-century Britain. It examines the role of material culture in these
acts of remembrance and compares how commemorative practices changed from the
aftermath of the battle in 1815 to the death of the Duke of Wellington in 1852. This thesis
identifies four areas of Waterloo battle commemoration in nineteenth-century Britain that
merit particular consideration. The first chapter considers commemorations of individual
experiences in the Battle of Waterloo and how eyewitness accounts from the battle influenced
these practices. This chapter examines how Waterloo veterans were celebrated in
commemorative visual arts and literary compositions; were fêted in public ceremonies
arranged by the British government, local political figures, or community associations; and
how the names of Waterloo and its heroes were incorporated into the very communities of
Britain through memorial naming practices. Individual Britons travelled to Waterloo in
various capacities from the summer of 1815 onwards, and thus became witnesses to changes
at the battle site over time. The second chapter explores the experiences of two groups who
participated in commemorative travel to the battlefield, civilian tourists and volunteer
surgeons. It considers the way in which the legacy of the Battle of Waterloo was shared with
tourists in the format of a guided tour of the field and explores how the memory of Waterloo
was preserved through items of battlefield material culture, with a particular focus on the
objects selected by visitors as relics of the field and their method of collection. It also
examines what British surgeons hoped to gain by travelling to Waterloo and considers how
these experiences of battlefield surgery contributed to the cultural memory of Waterloo in
Britain. The third chapter draws on a range of commemorative displays that explored themes
from the battle in order to gain an understanding of how Waterloo exhibitions were
disseminated in the nineteenth-century media and how they contributed to the wider culture
of Waterloo battle commemoration in Britain. These commemorative displays ranged from
theatrical productions and reenactment spectacles to relic collections and panorama galleries.
Finally, this thesis examines the array of practices used to commemorate the deaths of
Waterloo veterans within the context of nineteenth-century British death culture. The fourth
chapter reflects on the way in which memorialising the death of a Waterloo veteran not only
commemorated the individual’s life, but also perpetuated the memory of the battle itself in
the British public realm. This is considered through the array of death relics preserved to
remember Waterloo veterans, the content and structure of public announcements upon the
death of veterans, the evolution of funeral arrangements for Waterloo veterans across the
prescribed period of study, and finally the range of monuments erected to honour Waterloo
veterans and the battle. This thesis makes contributions to recent scholarship on war
commemoration and provides new insight into the cultural implications of the aftermath of
the Napoleonic Wars in nineteenth-century Britain.