Page 111 - Wish Stream Year of 2018

Intakes 1, 1a and 2 Reunion
One of the names carved into the Mons Hall brickwork
Before the reorganisation of Sandhurst in the 1870s, the College had the air of a board- ing school with some cadets being enrolled as young as 14 years old. Many took to carving their names and cadet numbers in the brickwork of Old College, the Mons Hall (then the racquets court) and the library tables. Some have survived remarkably well, enabling the ‘culprit’ to be iden- tified. We have been researching some of these to provide a snapshot of military life in the 19th century. Little did Gentleman Cadet Wilmer real- ise that he would be ‘outed’ on social media 160 years after his minor act of vandalism.
Interest in the tragic story of Louis Napoleon, the Prince Imperial of France, continues, and at the beginning of the year, we hosted members of the French 5th Infantry association. The group viewed material from The Prince’s time at Wool- wich before laying a wreath at the Statue on New College Square. Accompanying the visit was
Members of the French 5th Infantry Association at The Prince Imperial’s Statue
Dom Cuthbert Brogan, the Abbot of Farnbor- ough Abbey where the Prince and his parents, The Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eug- enie, are buried. A few weeks later Dom Cuth- bert kindly hosted the Trust volunteer guides on a visit to Farnborough to see the tombs. Our volunteers are the bedrock of the charity and responsible for generating much income through
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