A watercolour showing a group of infantrymen of the line, including a Rifle Brigade man in the centre, sat in a table in the canteen at Aldershot military camp. The caption on the sheet under the work designates them 'Crimean heroes'. Signed and dated bottom right: G.H.T. 1856. 

Like much of Britain, Victoria and Albert followed the Crimean war closely. They engaged constructively with the war effort, with their primary concern being for the welfare of the British soldiers. This empathy is reflected in the many watercolours and photographs relating to Crimean subjects that they collected. 

Between 1854 and 1859 the first permanent large-scale military training camp was built at Aldershot in Hampshire. Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were heavily involved in the setting up of the camp, and visited many times in the second half of the 1850s.

This watercolour was originally mounted in View Album VII. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert compiled nine View Albums during their marriage. These albums contained watercolours and drawings documenting their life together and were arranged in chronological order. The albums were dismantled in the early twentieth century and rebound in new volumes both in a different arrangement and with additional items, but a written record of their original contents and arrangement still exists.