London museum identifies black Waterloo veteran in rare 1821 painting | Heritage

He fought in the Napoleonic wars and is one of nine Black soldiers known to have received the Waterloo Medal, the first medal awarded in Britain to soldiers regardless of rank.

But the story of Pte Thomas James has been ignored 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 attributes 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 Tuesday at the museum’s “Army Home” gallery in Chelsea, where it will be on permanent display to highlight the service of James and other Black soldiers during the Napoleonic wars.

“There is a misconception that there were no Black soldiers at Waterloo,” said Anna Lavelle, the museum’s art curator. “This is not the public’s fault; it does not figure in historical discourse. But Thomas James is still one of many.”

He said James’ story deserves to be celebrated and should be better known. “He was willing to get hurt and risk his life for the other men in his regiment.”

It is possible that James, an illiterate percussionist in the 18th Light Dragoons, was born into slavery at Montserrat in the West Indies in 1789. Little is known about his early life. When he joined the army in 1809, he set out for Sussex, where slavery had been abolished, and described himself as a “servant”.

He was awarded the Waterloo Medal after being wounded while fighting a group of Prussian soldiers who had deserted and attempted to loot his officers’ belongings.

“There were about 20 soldiers looking at the officers’ luggage, but James was the only one seriously injured,” he said. “Obviously he put up a really good fight, he showed spirited defence, and I think that says a lot about his character and his sense of camaraderie.”

He said the officers must also have felt they could trust James with his belongings, which likely included money, jewelry and silver. “I think he was, above all, brave and also honorable.”

James’s portrait shows him in a bright white cavalry uniform, holding cymbals, suggesting that he had a particularly flamboyant role in the group. “Orchestral members would swing the cymbals under their legs, throw them in the air, catch them, and bang them together loudly…it would be a very theatrical, high-energy performance and required a lot of skill.”

Options for Black men in Georgian England were limited, and men like James who often did not want to be servants signed up for the army as military musicians, he said: “Black soldiers wore the same uniform as their white counterparts and received the same pay and pension – and in the army hierarchy, a Black soldier and a white soldier of the same rank had to treat each other equally.”

He said Black banders were so sought after for their regimental bands that they knew they would find a “small community” of other Black soldiers within the military, and that when their regiments were disbanded, Black soldiers would be “overwhelmingly re-enlisted.”

When the museum bought the portrait for £30,000 last year, the identities of both the sitter and the painter were unknown.

“We had a hunch that this was something special,” said Lavelle, who researched medal records and used clues such as bells and the caretaker’s uniform to identify James as a possible suspect.

He thinks the officers probably commissioned the portrait to celebrate James’ bravery: “This portrait would have been expensive; it was not something that James, or any other private in the army, could afford to pay for himself.”

He said portraits of known Black British soldiers were “extraordinarily rare”; He knows only two others from that period exist. “This is a portrait that can help us tell the story of Black musicians in general and the important role they play in history.”

He notes that James is wearing a ring and looking directly at the viewer in a relaxed pose: “He comes across as a very confident, dignified soldier with a real sense of pride.”