Two soldiers during the battle of Battle of Laing's Nek, 28 January 1881
Dimensions
84.4cm×78.1cm(33.2in×30.7in)
Owner
Private collection
Floreat Etona! is an 1882 painting by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler. The title is the motto of Eton College, "may Eton flourish". The painting depicts an incident that took place in 1881, during the First Boer War. It is held now in a private collection.
The work depicts Lieutenant Robert Elwes of the Grenadier Guards, who was killed at the Battle of Laing's Nek on 28 January 1881. The British Army was attempting to force its way through a pass in the Drakensberg Mountains, when Elwes joined a hopeless frontal assault into the teeth of a formidable Boer defence, charging up a hill on horseback. He reportedly encouraged another Eton old boy, adjutant of the 58th Regiment of Foot, with a shout of "Come along Monck! Floreat Etona! We must be in the front rank!" immediately before he was shot and killed. Elwes was one of 83 killed and 11 wounded. Monck survived the battle.
The painting shows two mounted British officers in blue patrol jackets, with swords drawn, leading red-coated infantry in a charge towards the viewer. The horse to the right (bearing Monck) is stumbling, and the officer to the left (Elwes) shouts encouragement. In the background, a Queen's Colour is visible – this attack was the last time a British battalion carried its colours into action – along with the flat-topped mountain of Majuba in Natal.
The painting measures 84.4×78.1 centimetres (33.2×30.7in). It was shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1882. Unusually for Lady Butler, the painting was not a critical success, perhaps because it commemorates a minor and unsuccessful incident in an unregarded war. Some critics thought the painting was too sentimental.
The painting was sold at Christie's in London in June 2007 for £50,400.
The First Boer War, was fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 between the United Kingdom and Boers of the Transvaal. The war resulted in a Boer victory and eventual independence of the South African Republic. The war is also known as the First Anglo–Boer War, the Transvaal War or the Transvaal Rebellion.
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson, later known as Lady Butler, was a British painter who specialised in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars. Her notable works include The Roll Call, The Defence of Rorke's Drift, and Scotland Forever!. She wrote about her military paintings in an autobiography published in 1922: "I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism." She was married to British Army officer William Butler, becoming Lady Butler after he was knighted.
Cetshwayo kaMpande was the king of the Zulu Kingdom from 1873 to 1884 and its Commander in Chief during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. His name has been transliterated as Cetawayo, Cetewayo, Cetywajo and Ketchwayo. Cetshwayo consistently opposed the war and sought fruitlessly to make peace with the British and was defeated and exiled following the Zulu defeat in the war. He was later allowed to return to Zululand, where he died in 1884.
The Battle of Majuba Hill on 27 February 1881 was the final and decisive battle of the First Boer War that was a resounding victory for the Boers. The British Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley occupied the summit of the hill on the night of 26–27 February 1881. Colley's motive for occupying Majuba Hill, near Volksrust, now in South Africa, may have been anxiety that the Boers would soon occupy it themselves, since he had witnessed their trenches being dug in the direction of the hill.
Victor Alexander Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, 13th Earl of Kincardine,, known as Lord Bruce until 1863, was a right-wing British Liberal politician who served as Viceroy of India from 1894 to 1899. He was appointed by Prime Minister Arthur Balfour to hold an investigative enquiry into the conduct of the Boer War in 1902 to 1903. The Elgin Commission was the first of its kind in the British Empire, and it travelled to South Africa and took oral evidence from men who had actually fought in the battles. It was the first to value the lives of the dead and to consider the feelings of mourning relatives left behind, and it was the first occasion in the history of the British Army that recognised the testimony of ordinary soldiery as well as that of the officers.
General Sir Redvers Henry Buller, was a British Army officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He served as Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in South Africa during the early months of the Second Boer War and subsequently commanded the army in Natal until his return to England in November 1900.
Alfred John Shout, was a New Zealand–born soldier and an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest decoration for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces. Shout was posthumously awarded the VC for his actions at Lone Pine in August 1915, during the Gallipoli campaign of the First World War. After Ottoman forces had counterattacked and seized a large stretch of the Australians' front line, Shout gathered a small party of men and charged down one trench throwing bombs. He killed eight Turkish soldiers, and managed to clear others to retake the trench. In a similar action later that day, and supported by another officer, he recaptured further ground amid hard fighting. In the final push forward, Shout simultaneously lit three bombs to lob at the enemy. He successfully threw two, but just as the third left his hand it detonated. Shout was grievously wounded; he died two days later.
John Doogan was an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Lieutenant-General Sir William Pulteney Pulteney, was a British general during the First World War.
The Battle of Laing's Nek was a major battle fought at Laing's Nek during the First Boer War on 28 January 1881.
Field Marshal Paul Sanford Methuen, 3rd Baron Methuen,, was a British Army officer. He served in the Third Anglo-Ashanti War in 1873 and then in the expedition of Sir Charles Warren to Bechuanaland in the mid-1880s. He took a prominent role as General Officer Commanding the 1st Division in the Second Boer War. He suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Magersfontein, during which he failed to carry out adequate reconnaissance and accordingly his artillery bombarded the wrong place leading to the Highland Brigade taking heavy casualties. He was later captured by the Boers at Tweebosch. After the war, he became General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in South Africa in 1908, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Natal in 1910 and then Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Malta in 1915.
Sir John Sinclair-Wemyss Arbuthnot, 1st Baronet, was a British Conservative Party politician.
The Wiltshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 62nd (Wiltshire) Regiment of Foot and the 99th Duke of Edinburgh's (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot.
Richard Caton Woodville Jr. was an English artist and illustrator, who is best known for being one of the most prolific and effective painters of battle scenes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Lieutenant Robert Hamond Elwes was a British Army officer who was killed in action during the First Boer War. As a junior officer in the Grenadier Guards regiment, Elwes fought in the Battle of Laing's Nek where he died while leading a cavalry charge against Boer forces. His death was portrayed in Elizabeth Thompson's 1898 painting "Floreat Etona!".
Allan Stewart (1865–1951) was a Scottish painter who built his reputation on romantic, historical and particularly military paintings as well as landscapes and portraits.
Scotland Forever! is an 1881 oil painting by Lady Butler depicting the start of the charge of the Royal Scots Greys, a British heavy cavalry regiment that charged with other British heavy cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The painting has been reproduced many times and is considered an iconic representation of the battle itself, and of heroism more generally.
Robert Elwes (1819–1878) was an English Victorian traveller and painter, and the author of A Sketcher's Tour Round the World illustrated by engravings from his own works which he published from his home at Congham, Norfolk, in 1853.
Logie Colin Leggatt was an English sportsman and cricketer who was killed during the First World War.
Brigadier General Walter Robert Butler Doran, was a highly decorated senior British Army officer who served with distinction in the Second Boer War, commanding an infantry battalion. He was a brigade commander during the First World War.
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