Overall: 72cm (28.5in) x 51cm (20in)
Provenance: Captain Malcolm McNiell
Oval three-quarter length portrait photograph of Queen Victoria by Bassano. ‘Presented by Queen Victoria / to Captain Malcolm McNeill / 4th Dragoon Guards / in charge of New South Wales Cavalry, May 24th 1893 / as a Souvenir of their visit to England.’ Signed and dated in the mount ‘Victoria R.I.’ (1837-1897). Image oval: 17cm (6.5in) x 13.5cm (5.2in). Framed and glazed.
In 1893 Australia sent a contingent of New South Wales Lancers to England to compete with British Army cavalry teams at the annual tournaments held in London and Dublin. Drawn from the Sydney, Illawarra, West Camden, Hunter River, Casino and Parramatta troops, the Australians were quartered at Hounslow with the 17th Lancers and placed in the charge of their former adjutant Captain McNeill of the 4th Dragoon Guards. In May they provided the Guard of Honour for Queen Victoria at the opening of the Imperial Institute building in South Kensington.
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Captain Malcolm McNeill, was commissioned 1881, and served on the Gordon Relief Expedition to the Sudan in 1884-1885 with the 5th (Royal Irish) Lancers, and served as orderly officer to Sir Henry ‘Croppy’ Ewart, commanding the cavalry brigade. He was thus present at the engagement at Hasheen and at the destruction of Temai. He was afterwards adjutant of the 5th Lancers in 1886-87 before transferring to the 4th (Queen’s Own) Hussars in 1888. That same year he was selected to instruct the newly raised New South Wales Lancer Regiment - an endeavour in which he was deemed 'exceptionally successful’. He subsequently transferred to the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, and was appointed an Aide-de-Camp to HRH The Duke of Connaught around 1895. By 1900 he had entered the Reserve of Officers and was subsequently Equerry and Military Secretary to the Duke of Connaught.
New South Wales Lancers saw action in the Second Boer War, and later during First World War at Gallipoli and Palestine as the 1st Light Horse Regiment.