The VC Paintings of Lord Wantage

Background

Robert James Loyd-Lindsay, 1st Baron Wantage VC KCB.

Robert James Loyd-Lindsay, 1st Baron Wantage (1832–1901), was a soldier, politician and philanthropist whose distinguished public career began in the Scots Fusilier Guards. Educated at Eton College, he served in the Crimean War and was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry at the battles of the Alma and Inkerman in 1854, receiving his medal from Queen Victoria at the first VC investiture in Hyde Park in 1857. After leaving the regular army he entered politics, serving as Conservative MP for Berkshire from 1865 to 1885 and as Financial Secretary to the War Office. He was appointed KCB in 1881, created Baron Wantage of Lockinge in 1885 and became Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire the following year. His connection with Eton is commemorated on the College’s VC and GC Memorial.

Loyd-Lindsay was equally notable for his philanthropy. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, he played a leading role in establishing the National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in War, contributing £1,000 himself and becoming its first chairman; the organisation was renamed the British Red Cross Society in 1905. He also had a particularly interesting connection with the artist Louis William Desanges. Desanges was painting Loyd-Lindsay—himself one of the earliest VC recipients—when the idea developed of creating a series illustrating the heroic actions for which Victoria Crosses had been awarded. The resulting Victoria Cross Gallery eventually comprised around fifty paintings. By 1900 the collection had passed into Lord Wantage’s possession, and he subsequently presented the paintings to the town of Wantage, creating an important visual record of the earliest recipients of Britain’s highest award for gallantry.

Louis William Desanges

Louis William Desanges (1822–1905) was a British painter of French ancestry who became particularly associated with the Victoria Cross. Originally aspiring to be a history painter, he increasingly turned to portraiture and military subjects. Following the introduction of the Victoria Cross in 1856, Desanges conceived an ambitious series of paintings showing recipients at the moment of the action for which they had been awarded the medal. His first 24 pictures were exhibited as the Victoria Cross Gallery at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly in 1859, and by the early 1860s the series had grown to around fifty paintings. Many were subsequently displayed at the Crystal Palace.

Rather than simply painting formal portraits, Desanges often reconstructed dramatic episodes from the Crimean War, Indian Mutiny and other campaigns, placing recognisable VC recipients at the centre of the action. The paintings therefore combined portraiture, military history and storytelling, helping Victorian audiences put faces and images to the newly created award for gallantry. His surviving works are now dispersed among museums and regimental collections; the National Army Museum, for example, holds several of his VC paintings, including those depicting William George Cubitt, Thomas Adair Butler and Frederick Aikman.

One small correction worth making if this is for a historical record: although Desanges is sometimes given as 1822–1906, stronger evidence now indicates that he died on 2 October 1905, at Vine House, West Drayton.

Transcript

LORD WANTAGE
VICTORIA CROSS CENTENARY
PAINTINGS EXHIBITION
MASONIC HALL WANTAGE
21st October to 26th November 2000

Lord Wantage Victoria Cross Paintings Exhibition. This Exhibition celebrates the Centenary of the gift, by Lord Wantage, of 46 famous action portraits by Chevalier Desanges of early winners of the Victoria Cross. See most of these images, assembled together for the first time since leaving the VC Gallery in 1941.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Charles Russell, 3rd Baronet VC MP

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Charles Russell, Bart., V.C., Knight of the Legion of Honour, Grenadier Guards
Crimea, 1854.

Citation

‘At the Battle of Inkermann, November 5th, 1854, offered to dislodge a party of Russians from Sandbag Battery, if anyone would follow him; Sergeant Norman, Privates Anthony Palmer and Bailey (who was killed) volunteered the first. The attack succeeded.

“Our ammunition was failing us, and the men, armed with stones, flung them into the masses of Russians, who caught the idea, and the air was thick with huge stones flying in all directions; but we were too much for them, and once more a mêlée of Grenadiers, Coldstreams, and Fusiliers held the battery their own, and from it on the solid masses of the Russians stilled poured as good a fire as our ammunition would permit. There were continued cries of ‘Charge!’ and some man near me said, ‘If any officer will lead us we will charge; and as I was the only one just there, I could not refuse such an appeal, so I jumped into the embrasure, and waving my revolver, said, ‘Come on my lads; who will follow me?” I then rushed on, fired my revolver at a fellow close to me, but it missed fire. I pulled again, and I think I killed him. Just then a man touched me on the shoulder and said, ‘You was near done for. I said, ‘Oh no, he was some way from me.’ He answered, ‘His bayonet was all but into you when I clouted him over the head’ And sure enough a fellow had got behind me and nearly settled me. I must add that the Grenadier who accompanied me was publicly made a Corporal on parade next morning. His name is Palmer.”

Extract from a Letter written by Sir Charles to his mother after the Battle of Inkermann.

Original picture
Current location	Grenadier Guards Horseguards Building Whitehall
Size	78 inches x 60 inches
Condition	Good

Biographical details
Name	RUSSELL, Sir Charles VC Bt
Rank	B/Major, later Lt Col-3rd Bn. Grenadier Guards
Born	22 Jun 1826 Sothern Hill near Reading, Berks
Died	13 Apr 1883-Reading, aged 56
Parents	Sir Henry Russell Bt. & Marie Clotilde d. Baron Benoit Mottet de la Fontaine
Family	Unmarried. Bro. Sir George Russell inherited Baronetcy
Educated	Eton
Post Service	MP Berkshire 1865/68; 1874 Member for Westminster. Hon. Col 4th Middlesex Volunteers 1877; DL County of Berks.
Buried	All Saints Church, Swallowfield, Berks. Vault inside church
Memorials	Stained glass window in All Saint’s Church

Images

Click to enlarge

Curator's Notes

The first image is that of an oil-on-canvas painting depicting Robert James Lindsay (later Baron Wantage of Lockinge, VC) during the Crimean War, created around 1854 by artist Chevalier Louis William Desanges. He is most highly celebrated today for painting the definitive collection of early Victoria Cross heroes from the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny.

Victoria Cross Gallery, Market Place, Wantage holds the collection. The gallery is marked with a Blue Plaque.

Local Men in the 2000 Exhibition included:

• Robert Lindsay VC (later Lord Wantage)
• Gerald Goodlake VC
• Charles Russell VC
• Frederick Roberts VC (later Field Marshall Earl Roberts)
• Robert Rogers VC

Curator's References

Thanks to Derek Hunt for providing these images.

Artworks by Louis William Desanges on the Art UK website [accessed 31 Aug 2026]

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