A Representation of the March of the Guards towards Scotland, in the Year 1745 (BM 1868,0808.12397)

Copy of "The March to Finchley"; scene at Tottenham Court (after the painting in the Foundling Museum) with soldiers gathering to march north to defend London from the Jacobite rebels; the crowd includes, in the foreground, a man urinating painfully against a wall as he reads an advertisement for Dr Rock's remedy for venereal disease, an innocent young piper, a drunken drummer, a young soldier with a pregnant ballad seller (her basket contains "God Save our Noble King" and a portrait of the Duke of Cumberland) and a Jacobite harridan selling newspapers, a milkmaid being kissed by one soldier while another fills his hat from her pail, a muffin man, a chimney boy, a gin-seller whose emaciated baby reaches for a drink; in the background a boxing match takes place under the sign of Giles Gardiner (Adam and Eve), a wagon loaded with equipment follows the marching soldiers and, to right, prostitutes lean from the windows of a brothel at the sign of Charles II's head; beyond the sunlight shines on Hampstead village on the hill; a reduced copy after the print by Sullivan. c.1790
Etching and engraving