Maxim Gun. A photograph of 8 officers grouped around a maxim gun, circa 1890

The rather irregularly faded photograph [11 x 8ins, 285 x 210mm] shows a captain and seven lieutenants with an early maxim gun mounted on a gun carriage with large wooden spoked wheels. It is mounted on an old card album leaf and the reverse has a similarly sized group portrait of 42 mainly junior officers grouped around a lieutenant colonel. The officers represent a considerable range of regiments and this is probably a training group, perhaps at a small arms school as two hold rifles. With a good eye glass quite a number of the regiments can de discerned from the cap and collar badges. A good strong image of the gun which had such a devastating effect in the pitched battles of the late Victorian colonial wars.