Crimean War - Cavalry Camp, 1855
William Simpson was born in Glasgow where he trained as a lithographer and in 1851 moved to London where he quickly found work with the printers Day & Son. In 1854 war in the Crimea broke out and Simpson was commissioned to prepare a drawing anticipating the eminent fall of Sebastopol and swift victory. Simpson wanted his depiction to be as accurate as possible but failed to find any recent views upon which to base his drawing. Subsequently, the radical decision was taken by his employer and eventual publisher of the work Messrs Colnaghi that Simpson should be sent to the theatre of war to sketch on the spot, although he would have to pay his own travel expenses. Thus Simpson became the first War Artist and the Crimea War the first of many that he would capture as an artist and correspondent.
On his arrival in the Crimea the tragedy of the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade was uppermost in the minds of the troops, the disaster having taken place only three weeks previously. Simpson’s depiction of the battle would come to exemplify his approach where accuracy held sway over drama. He studied the valley where the charge had occurred and queried events with the participants, visiting the Earl of Cardigan several times on his yacht in Balaclava Harbour. Twice Simpson submitted sketches of the action to Lord Cardigan and twice the Light Brigade commander rejected these out of hand. His third attempt was met with ‘warmest praise’ and Simpson later wrote ‘I was anxious to send home the sketch bearing with it the approval of the principal hero… (taking) greater care than in the first two to make his lordship conspicuous in the front of the brigade’.
On his arrival in the Crimea the tragedy of the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade was uppermost in the minds of the troops, the disaster having taken place only three weeks previously. Simpson’s depiction of the battle would come to exemplify his approach where accuracy held sway over drama. He studied the valley where the charge had occurred and queried events with the participants, visiting the Earl of Cardigan several times on his yacht in Balaclava Harbour. Twice Simpson submitted sketches of the action to Lord Cardigan and twice the Light Brigade commander rejected these out of hand. His third attempt was met with ‘warmest praise’ and Simpson later wrote ‘I was anxious to send home the sketch bearing with it the approval of the principal hero… (taking) greater care than in the first two to make his lordship conspicuous in the front of the brigade’.
One can only speculate why Simpson did not show Lord Cardigan leading the charge in the first two drawings, having as he had done meticulously sought the accounts of survivors and eye witnesses. The controversy over the Earl of Cardigan's behaviour during the charge raged on for years and eight years later he was still suing a Colonel Clathorpe for libel.
Published in London in 1855 by Colnaghi and Co.,The Seat of War in the East was a large folio volume containing some sixty tinted lithographs and was a great success. Simpson began a career that would see him travelling the world, becoming known for putting his art before his life, even coming under fire himself numerous times in his dedication to gain the right perspective.
