Thomas Walker and Joseph Conolly

6" x 5" glass plate negative showing Thomas Walker of the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment of Foot and Joseph Conolly of the 46th (South Devonshire) Regiment of Foot, both veterans of the Crimean War. Walker is sitting to the left and Conolly to the right. Both are wearing civilian clothes and are holding a clay pipe in one of their hands. Conolly is also holding a wooden crutch. There is a brick wall behind them.

Both men were wounded during the Battle of Inkerman. Walker was shot through the top of the head and Conolly lost his right leg. They were among the wounded soldiers that Queen Victoria met at the military hospital at Chatham shortly after the war. Following her visits to the hospital she commissioned a series of photographs of the veterans.

The glass plate negative has been photographed showing the coated side and therefore the image appears laterally reversed. Prints from this negative exist in the Collection (e.g. RCIN 2500156).