William Charles Wentworth

This portraitback to top

This is a reduced version of the portrait medallion executed by Woolner during his two-year visit to Australia, examples of which are found in various Australian collections. The sculptor had hoped to obtain a commission for a projected statue of Wentworth. He wrote home in March 1854, 'You will have seen by the newspapers I sent how highly a medallion of Wentworth I did is spoken of. There has been the greatest praise bestowed upon it but, as was the case in England, with me the matter seems to end there.' This example was purchased from the sculptor's daughter, Amy Woolner, in 1912.

Events of 1854back to top

Current affairs

The Working Men's College in London is founded by Frederick Maurice, who along with Charles Kingsley, a leading proponent of Christian Socialism, mocked by its opponents as 'muscular Christianity'. Christian Socialism attempted to combine the fundamental aims of socialism with the ethics of Christianity.
William Howard Russell is sent to cover the Crimean war by his paper, The Times; his dispatches mark the start of modern war correspondence.

Art and science

The artist William Powell Frith paints his famous Ramsgate Sands, Life at the Seaside, an astute observation of modern leisure time.
Dr John Snow, the founder of epidemiology, discovers that cholera is spread by water, rather than air, following the deaths of 500 people in ten days who had drank from a water pump in Broad Street. The Public Health Act is passed in response, setting up the General Board of Health.

International

Britain enters the Crimean war on 31 March, after an alliance is formed between Turkey, France, Sardinia and Britain against Russia. Florence Nightingale achieves great fame in introducing modern nursing techniques to the battlefield, earning her the title 'Lady with the Lamp'.

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