Captain Siborne’s Model of Waterloo
This is a model showing the battlefield of Waterloo at about 7.00pm on 18 June 1815, near the very end of the Battle. It was made in 1830, 15 years after the Battle, by a Captain William Siborne, at huge expense and with an obsessive attention to detail. Captain Siborne hoped to create a definitive record of the Battle of Waterloo, but his model became the centre of political squabbles, and Siborne was driven into debt and despair.
Captain William Siborne, born 15 October 1797, was in the British 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot at the time of the Battle of Waterloo, but this regiment arrived in Europe just too late to fight on 18 June 1815.
Siborne was fascinated with geography and military surveying, publishing two books on the subject. In 1830, Siborne was appointed by General Sir William Hill, commander-in-chief of the British Army in England, to make a model of the Battle of Waterloo. The Dutch government had just erected a large monument (The “Lion’s Mound”) that changed the shape of the battlefield, and probably Hill wanted a permanent memorial of the Allied victory before the details of Waterloo became forgotten.
Siborne launched a massive research project, spending 8 months at Waterloo in Belgium surveying the battlefield, as well as making careful drawings of the buildings and crops. To research the positions of the troops, Siborne wrote a circular letter to every surviving British officer who had fought on 18 June 1815. He also wrote to military representatives in the Netherlands and Prussia, who had supplied many soldiers to the Allied army at Waterloo. Guided by more than 700 replies, Siborne positioned the 70,000 tin-lead model soldiers. Completing the model, built and painted entirely by hand, took over 8 years.
The model is over 8.33 metres long by 6 metres long, and can be broken into 39 sections for transport. Each one of the 70,000 model soldiers represents at least 2 actual men, as there were over 200,000 French, Prussian and Allied troops on the battlefield of Waterloo. However, the Duke of Wellington was not impressed with Siborne’s work, which he claimed was inaccurate – possibly because it gave too much prominence to the Prussian army arriving on the battlefield. This showed that many of the soldiers who had defeated the French had been Prussians who were not under the Duke of Wellington’s direct command, and undermined the Duke’s claim to be the main victor.
Without support from the British government, Siborne’s debts began to catch up with him. It had cost over £3000 to produce the model, a sum worth over £200,000 in today’s money. The model went on display in the Egyptian Hall, in the centre of Trafalgar Square, where it was seen by over 100,000 people – but still did not earn enough money to recoup Siborne’s costs. Captain Siborne had to cancel his plans to make several more models showing events throughout the Battle of Waterloo. He spent the rest of his life trying to sell his masterpiece. Not until 1849 – just two years before Siborne’s death – did the the British Army regiments depicted in the model club together to buy it. It eventually arrived in the collection of the National Army Museum.
-
Curatorial info
- Originating Museum: National Army Museum
- Accession Number: NAM. 1975-05-56-1
- Production Date: 1838
- Creator: William Siborne
- Creation Place: Ireland
-
Use this image
You can download a higher resolution image below, but please note the conditions of the licence.
- Rights Holder: Copyright National Army Museum
- License Type: All Rights Reserved
Find it here
This object is in the collection of National Army Museum