4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, a group of senior officers in camp, c 1880s

Two 9 x 7 ins sepia toned photographs showing a group pf senior officers in conference outside a tent, presumably on exercise. The longer distance image shows several more tents and tethered horses. Although a little chipped and faded at the edges these are remarkably clear images and a contemporary pencil note on the back of the closer view identifies one of the officers as Col. T. B. Shaw Hellier, on the grass although it does not give a location. The price is for the two photographs.  feb25/3

Colonel Thomas Bradney Shaw-Hellier [1836-1910] joined the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards as a Cornet in 1861, Lt. 1863, Captain 1867, Major 1876, Lt. Col. 1881, Colonel 1885, placed omn half pay 1886. Hart’s Army List 1888 gives his war service as served with the 4th Dragoon Guards in the Egyptian war of 1882, and was present in the engagements at Tel-el-Mahuta and Kassasin on the 28th August (Medal and Khedive’s Star). The internet tells us that he rose to command the regiment an was later Director of the Royal Military School of Music. He was a Staffordshire country gentleman and farmer who, after his marriage failed, moved to a villa in Taormina, Sicily.