This website presents our knowledge and research on this important aspect of the Royal Collection. As of April 2026 it will not be regularly updated and new research on this topic will sit within the main website.

Record of historical events

Victoria and Albert collected photographs that documented the political and military events that defined a period of global expansion

JAMES ROBERTSON (1813-88)

Men working in a British cemetery

1855-1856

Salted paper print | 23.9 x 29.1 cm (image) (image) | RCIN 2500762

Photograph of men working in a British cemetery in the Crimea. The cemetery contains a number of simple gravestones, with the inscriptions clearly visible on most. Five men are gathered to the left, two digging a grave and one sanding down a block of stone. Beside them there is a gravestone lying flat on wooden planks. Behind the graves there is a stone wall with an open gateway to the right. Before they left the Crimea in 1856 the British created a number of cemeteries on the sites where regiments had camped during the Siege of Sevastopol.
  • Creator(s)

    James Robertson (1813-88) (photographer)

  • 23.9 x 29.1 cm (image) (image)

    31.8 x 37.3 cm (mount)

  • Men working in British cemetery. [Title in contents list]. [Crimean War photographs by Robertson].

  • From the collection of Queen Victoria

  • Subject(s)
    • Social sciences
      • Military affairs
        • Wars, Campaigns & Battles
          • Wars
            • Wars of the nineteenth century
              • Crimean War (1853-1856)
    • Places
      • Europe
        • Ukraine
          • Crimea
            • Sevastopol [Crimea]
    • Arts, Recreation, Entertainment & Sport
      • Town planning, landscapes and gardens
        • Cemeteries
      • Architecture
        • Ecclesiastical & religious architecture
          • Funerary architecture