Art can change history by confronting the public with reality. One example is the work of William Simpson. Together with the Times correspondent William Howard Russel and Thomas Chenery, William Simpson's lithographs from the Crimean War (1853- 56) contributed to a re-evaluation of the modern war in the European public. As allies of the decaying Ottoman Empire, the British Empire and France tried to stop Russia's continental expansion and became embroiled in one of the bloodiest colonial wars of the 19th century. Since the victory over Napoleon, British troops were no longer involved in such a war and considerable weaknesses were evident in the organisation of supplies and the provision of troops with the help of modern logistical instruments. During the first battles the British expeditionary corps won victories against the tsarist army, but proved unable to treat the wounded in the material battles adequately. Many soldiers died during the transport to the central military hospital, sometimes lasting weeks.
William Simpson accompanied and documented the failure and mismanagement of the British military leadership and caused a turn in public opinion with the comments of the Times journalists. But Simpson's career was anything but predetermined. Born in Glasgow, he did not start school until the age of 11. With discipline and a sense of mission, he continued to work through evening studies and became an apprentice in a lithography company. The rise of this art form was closely linked to the development of the mass media. Newspapers, magazines and journals demanded images to illustrate the written word. In 1854 Simpson was commissioned to make lithographs of the Crimean War according to reports. He convinced his clients that only local reporting would have a mass impact. When he arrived in Crimea, he was overwhelmed by the scenes and the suffering of the ordinary soldiers, who were victims of violence, but above all of the failure and incompetence of their own commanders. The face of the war and the violence had not changed, but what made the difference were the technical possibilities of telegraphy and the mass press, which allowed the public to have a new experience of the war. The images of wounded left alone, of emergency transports, dirt, illness and death, complemented the reports of people like Florence Nightingale, who became an icon of humanity in the Crimean War.
With the reputation he earned as an illustrator of the Crimean War, Simpson received commissions from magazines to report on similar events and to create a portfolio after his return. The next target was again a colonial conflict in the British Empire. In India, British colonial troops crushed the so-called Sepoy uprising with the most brutal force. In 1868 he was part of the Ethiopia expedition, a punitive mission against African tribal chiefs who had killed English missionaries. After further work as a war correspondent in the Franco-Prussian War of 1866 and the second Afghan War, Simpson retired from public life.
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.jpg "The Golden Temple, Benares by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Emperor of Austria Ascending the Great Pyramid, Egypt by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Street in Bombay, from")
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.jpg "Akalis at the Holy Tank, Umritsar, from")
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.jpg "Madras, from")
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.jpg "One of the Wards of the Hospital at Scutari, from")
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.jpg "The Graves on Cathcart")
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.jpg "The Cavalry Affair of the Heights of Bulganak: the First Gun, plate from")
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.jpg "Sebastopol from Old Chersonese, Plate from")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-99442).jpg "Charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade, 25th October 1854, engraved by E. Walker, pub. by Colnaghi und Co, 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Burning of the Government Buildings at Kertch, Plate from")
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.jpg "Sentinel of the Zouaves, Plate from")
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.jpg "Interior of the Redan, Plate from")
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.jpg "The Village Well, from")
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.jpg "Sebastopol from the Rear of Fort Nicholas, Plate from")
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.jpg "The Jami Masjid, Delhi by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Peshawar Market Scene, from")
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.jpg "Interior of Lord Raglan")
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_on_the_ward_from_-_(MeisterDrucke-361784).jpg "Hospital at Scutari, detail of Florence Nightingale on the ward, from The Seat of War in the East, pub. by Paul & Dominic Colnaghi & Co., 1856 (detail) by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Lighthouse at Cape Chersonese, plate from")
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.jpg "Pheel Khana, or Elephants Quarters, Holcars Camp, from")
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.jpg "Highland Brigade Camp, Looking South by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Bahr El Khabeer on The Great Sea: rockcut cisterns under the site of Solomons Temple, 1870 by William Crimea Simpson")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-322060).jpg "The Return Visit of the Viceroy to the Maharajah of Cashmere, 1863 by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-202921).jpg "Rock-Cut Tunnel, Pools of Solomon, Near Bethlehem, 1872 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Maristan or Mosque-Hospital of Kalaun, Cairo by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Interior of the Mamelon Vert (plate from")
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.jpg "Cavalry Camp, Plate from")
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.jpg "Battle of the Tchernaya, August 16th 1855, plate from")
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.jpg "Indian Woman Floating Lamps on the Ganges, from")
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.jpg "View of Mentone, the Queen")
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.jpg "The Admiralty, Sebastopol, plate from")
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.jpg "The Battle of Tcherneya, 16 August 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Huts and Warm Clothing for the Army, plate from")
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.jpg "Gale off the Port of Balaklava, November 14th 1854, plate from")
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.jpg "Interior of Fort Nicholas, Sebastopol, Crimea by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Khan")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-36746).jpg "Mine in the Bastion du Mat, Sebastopol, Crimea by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Cave of Elephanta, from")
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.jpg "Burning of the Government Buildings at Kertch, 9 June 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Second Charge of the Guards when they retook the Two Gun Battery at the Battle of Inkerman, engraved by Edmond Morin from The Seat of War in the East - First Series, published by Colnaghi by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Liverpool Corporation Waterworks, Lake Vyrnwy, Montgomeryshire, North Wales by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Attack on the Malakoff by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Interior of the Malakoff, plate from")
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.jpg "The Gale off the Port of Balaklava, 14 November 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "A Hot Night in the Batteries, plate from")
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.jpg "The Afghan War, Sketches at a Review at Gundamuck by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Lord Raglan")
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.jpg "Battle of the Tchernaya, 16 August 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Quarantine Cemetery and Church, Plate from")
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.jpg "Jubilee of the Free Church of Scotland, Auchterarder, Associated with the Disruption in 1843 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Afghan War, the Ameer Yakoob Khan and Major Cavagnari Signing the Treaty of Gundamuck by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Hospital and Cemetery, Scutari, plate from")
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.jpg "Temple of Minerva Sunium, Engraved by J. Saddler by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Funeral of the Late German Emperor at Berlin, Procession in the Unter den Linden by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Kamiesch, Plate from")
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.jpg "Past Days on the Persian Border, a Turkoman Raid, the Tower of Refuge by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Rock-Cut Statues of Bamian, Central Asia by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Indore, from")
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.jpg "Delhi - Jeweller, from")
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.jpg "The cavalry affair of the heights of Bulganak - the first gun, 19 September 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-43591).jpg "Elephant Battery, 1864 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Afghan Boundary, the Nialsheni Pass, on the Heri-Rud by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-232035).jpg "Cashmere Shawls: Weaving, 1863 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "A Doorway in Cairo, 1884 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "A Quiet Night in the Batteries, plate from")
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.jpg "Neptune on Board the")
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.jpg "Tomb of Omar Khayyam, the Persian Poet, at Naishapur by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Interior of the Malakoff, 8th September 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Capture of the Malakoff Redoubt by the French, Siege of Sevastopol, 8 September 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Disembarkation - Kerch, 24 May 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Indigo Factory - Bengal, from")
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.jpg "The Petroleum Oil Wells at Baku, on the Caspian by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-249281).jpg "Passage Under the Aksa, 1871 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Town Batteries or Interior Fortifications of Sebastopol from the Advanced Parallel of Chapman")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-159844).jpg "The Governor-General")
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.jpg "Hospital and Cemetery, Scutari, plate from")
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.jpg "Head of the Harbour, Sebastopol, plate from")
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.jpg "The Bastion du Mat, Sevastopol by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "A Quiet Day in the Diamond Battery, Portrait of a Lancaster 68 Pounder, 15 December 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava, 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "A Turkoman Raid, Carrying Off a Prize by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Queen")
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.jpg "Graves of the Officers in the Fort on Cathcart Hill, 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Balaklava, plate from")
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.jpg "The Trouble in Crete, Suda Bay, on the North-East of the Island by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Ditch of the Malakoff, plate from")
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.jpg "Sebastopol from the Sea, plate from The Seat of War in the East by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Russian Military Positions in Asia, Krasnovodsk, on the Caspian Sea by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Fort of Allahabad, and Junction of the Jumna with the Ganges by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-171516).jpg "The Thug School of Industry, Jubbulpore, 1863 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Ditch of the Bastion du Mat, plate from")
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.jpg "Sikh Priest Reading the Grunth, Umritsar, from")
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.jpg "The Fountain of the Virgin, Jerusalem, 1869 by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-146759).jpg "Well of the Steps, Jerusalem, 1871 by William Crimea Simpson")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-551678).jpg "Chelsea Pensioners by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Trouble in Crete, Retimo, one of the Chief Towns of the Island, and the Scene of many Murders by Turkish Soldiers by William Crimea Simpson")
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_from_The_Seat_of_War_i_-_(MeisterDrucke-323134).jpg "Attack on the Malakoff, Engraved by Edmond Morin from")
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.jpg "Burning Temple of the Winds by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Consecration of the Restored Schlosskirche at Wittenberg, by the German Emperor by William Crimea Simpson")
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