Overall: 17cm (7in) x 24.4cm (9.6in)
Printed card with ink inscriptions. Decorated with Greek key border and ducal coronet, and named to James R Bruce Esq, for a place in the ‘South Transept’ for the Iron Duke’s funeral at St. Paul’s Cathedral on 18 November 1852. Framed and glazed.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, was laid to rest in St Paul's in a State Funeral on 18 November 1852. It was one of the most spectacular London events of the 19th century. The body was received at St. Paul’s Cathedral by the Dean of St Paul’s, Henry Milman with clergy and choir at the West Door, and conducted to the central area under the Dome. The pall was borne by eight of the most distinguished surviving general officers who had fought under the Duke’s command. The congregation included both Houses of Parliament in full, and a huge contingent of foreign and British dignitaries and civic authorities. When the congregation was asked to repeat the Lord's Prayer - Dean Milman thought it comparable to the Biblical phrase 'like the roar of many waters’. Finally, the Duke's coffin was lowered into the Crypt, towards the black sarcophagus of a previous arrival, Admiral Lord Nelson. In Milman’s words: ‘the gradual disappearance of the coffin, as it slowly sank into the vault below, was a sight which will hardly pass from the memory of those who witnessed it.’