Thomas McKaverey

Photograph of Thomas McKaverey standing against a brick wall. He is wearing hospital clothes and is supporting himself with two long wooden crutches. There is a wooden chair to the right. This photograph, printed by Jabez Hughes in 1883, is a carbon print pasted over the original photograph. 

Thomas McKaverey served with the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot during the Crimean War. He was wounded by a shell explosion in the advanced trenches on 20th August 1855, loosing five inches of bone from his hip joint. He was one of the wounded veterans seen by Queen Victoria at Chatham Military Hospital. Following her visits to the hospital she commissioned a series of photographs of the veterans from the photographers Joseph Cundall and Robert Howlett. 

Queen Victoria wrote in her journal for 16 April 1856: 'Two of the most interesting & wonderful cases of recovery were: Th: McKavery, 68th Regt, 5 inches of whose hip joint had been removed, & yet the leg preserved. Dr Dartnell called it "The triumph of surgery". The leg can be moved quite well, being only a little shorter than the other.' (QVJ, Royal Archives)