This watercolour shows an Army encampment in Hyde Park in the summer of 1780, when anti-Catholic riots broke out in London. The origins of the uprising lay in the Papists Act of 1778, which was intended to reduce discrimination against British Catholics. Opposition to the Act turned violent on 2^nd June 1780, when George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association, presented the House of Commons with a petition demanding its repeal. That night, following the defeat of the petition, angry mobs attacked Catholic churches, homes and embassies, as well as prisons and the Bank of England. The rioting continued for several days until the Army was brought in on 7^th June. Thousands of troops were quartered in the city’s parks and on common land around the capital.

Despite their serious purpose, the Army garrisons soon became a popular attraction. William Whitehead (OW), the poet laureate, wrote to Lord Harcourt: ‘The camp in St James’s Park is so extremely pretty that you would be charmed with the sight of it. Tents, ammunition, colours, carriages, cannons and kettledrums.’ From his home in St George’s Row, on the north side of Hyde Park, Sandby was well placed to observe the military activity. In 1781 he exhibited at the Royal Academy three views of the troops in Hyde Park, possibly including the present watercolour, and four of other encampments in London. He subsequently published four large and two small sets of etchings of the camps. In the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, is a smaller version of this scene, dated 1780, which must have served as a preparatory work for the picture at Winchester.

Although this watercolour recalls a time of great political tension, the scene is a cheerful one. In the centre, a woman serves ale to two soldiers, while another carries a bottle and baskets of provisions. On the right-hand side are two well-dressed women and a girl. Behind them one of the soldiers runs alongside a child riding a horse. Sandby specialised in landscape, but he enjoyed painting human figures going about their activities.

Exhibited: Sotheby’s, London, Watercolours from Winchester College, 1988, no. 5.

Provenance: Gift of Harry Collison, 1940.