Viscount Gallery

Smoking club, 18th century artwork

Smoking club, 18th century artwork. The practice of smoking tobacco was popularised in England and Ireland in the 1580s and 1590s by the English soldier and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh (c.1552-1618). This artwork, by the English caricaturist James Gillray (1757-1815), shows members of the House of Commons puffing smoke at each other. Those present include the Speaker (left) Charles James Fox (1749-1806), the Prime Minister (second from left) William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) and the Home Secretary (second from right) Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (1742-1811). This copy of this artwork was published in the work Tobacco, its History and Associations (1859) by the English engraver Frederick William Fairholt (1814-1866)

© GEORGE ARENTS COLLECTION/NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY/ SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Notables assembled in the Abbey annexe at 1937 Coronation

Ecclesiastics, distinguished officers of state and regalia bearers awaiting the arrival of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in the tapestried hall of the temporary annexe of Westminster Abbey. On the extreme left is Viscount Lascelles, elder son of the Princess Royal, one of the King's train-bearers. The group left centre consists of the Duke of Buccleuch, the Lord Steward; Field-Marshal Lord Milne, bearer of the Second Sword; the Earl of Cromer, the Lord Chamberlain; and the Duchess of Norfolk, canopy bearer to the Queen. The two ecclesiastics standing in the centre are the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London (bearer of the paten), while the group on the right foreground consists of the Duke of Abercorn, one of the four Knights of the Garter appointed to hold the canopy for the King's Anointing; the Earl of Lytton, another canopy-bearer; Major Algar H. S. Howard, Norroy King of Arms; and Lord Hailsham the Lord Chancellor. Date: 1937

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Allied Military Leaders receive Legion of Honour Grand Croix

Allied Military Leaders - WWII era. General Gamelin, Commander-in-chief of the Allied Armies; General Sir Edmund Ironside, Chief of the British Imperial General Staff; General Viscount Gort, British Commander-in-Chief and General Georges, French Commander-in-Chief in the North-East, after the ceremony in which the British Generals received the Grand Croix of the Legion of Honour in 1946. Date: 1946

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection