A Long Tortuous Journey
The story of the journals and letters of the Luards has been a very long saga, filled with false dawns and deep frustrations, but thankfully now with ultimate success. I have been aware of the existence of a journal and letters written by Lieutenant Colonel John Luard, who had served in the Peninsular War, at Waterloo and later in India, since I first procured a copy of Scarlet Lancer in the 1970s as a teenager.1 His military career is told here with great gusto, but is illuminated by, sadly, only a few snippets from his journals and letters, as it concentrates more on his later service in India with the 16th Light Dragoons. I was also aware that John was an accomplished artist in later life, publishing his Views in India and A History of the Dress of the British Soldier,2 although only a couple of images from his time in the Iberian Peninsula were reproduced in Scarlet Lancer. A tantalising hint of something further existing appeared in Peter Snow’s history of the Peninsular War, To War with Wellington,3 where a single pen and ink image by John Luard of a ‘flying bridge’ appears, although unfortunately no hint of where the image came from appears in the illustration credits. However, in 2015, for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, the Society for Army Historical Research, in association with the National Army Museum, published A Peninsular and Waterloo Anthology.4 This contained a very sizeable article by Clive Cohen, covering no less than 83 pages, entitled Brothers in War, George (1788-1847) and John (1790-1875) Luard, Paths to Waterloo. It consists of a short history of the Luards and sizeable quotes from the letters of the two young officers, along with those of other officers in the regiment, but also accompanied by a number of delightful pen and ink sketches by John Luard, which strangely does not include the ‘flying bridge’ sketch mentioned above. Clive only indicated that the material published had come from the Luard Family Archive, but provided no further information as to the whereabouts of the originals. However, he also mentioned that a Johanna Merz had also published some extracts of the letters and journals in a family history entitled The Luards of Blyborough Hall.5 As a historian specialising in the study of personal records of soldiers who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, these frequent tantalising glimpses of what appeared to be a very important and sizeable collection of letters and journals proved extremely frustrating, without any clear knowledge of where the originals were. However, this all changed suddenly in 2023, when a friend of mine put me in touch with a fellow ex-Royal Navy officer, James Luard, who lives near Wellington in Somerset, who had copies of some family papers which he was happy for me to view. Having visited his home and photographed the journal of John Luard written up in 1863 and photocopies of some of his letters, I realised that the portion published by Clive Cohen in 2015 was simply the tip of the iceberg and that their historical importance was very significant indeed, especially the large number of pen and ink sketches drawn on campaign by John Luard. James then kindly arranged for me to visit his cousin Jane Luard in Gloucester, where I was f inally able to view the original letters of not only John and George Luard, but also of their uncles Charles and James Dalbiac, who were their seniors in the same regiment in Spain and Portugal. John’s original campaign journals were also present, allowing me to check the original entries with the fair copy written up in 1863; but unfortunately his naval journal, quoted briefly in Scarlet Lancer, was not present, nor his brother George’s journals, which it is hoped may one day surface within the papers of another branch of the Luard family. I must at this point also record a note of sincere thanks to the Reverend Clive Cohen, former Rector of the Parish of All Saints Church in West Winterslow near Salisbury, where George Luard is buried alongside his brother Edward, who had been Rector of the church. Clive had obviously been given previous access to the Luard papers and had sorted them properly into bundles in date order, for which I was extremely grateful. It is clear that Clive intended to publish a voluminous Luard family history, but unfortunately his untimely death in 2019 prevented him from completing his project. Completely unrelated to the letters and journals, and as far back as 2012, I was contacted out of the blue by someone who possessed a large folio of watercolours which had been painted by John Luard, and which they kindly supplied me with photographs of. Luckily, I saved a copy of the images externally before my computer crashed and I lost the original email. I therefore have the images but have no record of who so kindly supplied them to me; indeed, no one in the Luard family knows who the current owner of the watercolours is but they believe they may reside in Australia or New Zealand. I have therefore utilised the relevant images from this folio that pertain to the peninsula or France, but unfortunately, I cannot record my thanks appropriately. Having at that time absolutely no idea where the Luard papers were, I simply stored the images away to rediscover them in a long-forgotten file in 2023. T he final piece of the Luard jigsaw fell into place in 2021, when a watercolour view of Ciudad Rodrigo circa 1812, showing the breaches, went up for sale. I successfully organised a crowd-funding bid by fellow enthusiasts, and the image was subsequently donated to the National Army Museum in 2022. Research into the style of composition and a comparison of the handwriting confirmed that the image is undoubtedly by John Luard and is the missing image, which he records drawing in January 1812, just after the siege ended. This long and tortuous journey has now finally come to fruition, and I now proudly reproduce the entire set of journals, letters and sketches which encompass the fascinating story of the Luards and Dalbiacs during the Peninsular War and at Waterloo.