‘Honourable’ bandsman Thomas James will feature in display at National Army Museum highlighting service of black soldiers in Napoleonic wars
He fought in the Napoleonic wars and is one of only nine Black soldiers known to have received the Waterloo Medal, the first British medal awarded to soldiers regardless of their rank.
Yet the story of Pte Thomas James has been overlooked for centuries.
Now the National Army Museum in London has identified James as the likely subject of an “extraordinarily rare” painting from 1821, which it has attributed to the artist Thomas Phillips, whose more typical sitters were Georgian luminaries such as the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron.
The portrait will be unveiled to the public on Tuesday at the museum’s “Army at Home” gallery in Chelsea, where it will be placed on permanent display to highlight the service of James and other Black soldiers during the Napoleonic wars.
