London museum identifies black Waterloo veteran Thomas James in rare 1821 painting

[eShirl]

photo of painting at link (no paywall):
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/oct/21/london-museum-identifies-black-waterloo-veteran-in-rare-1821-painting

He fought in the Napoleonic wars and is one of only nine Black soldiers known to have received the Waterloo Medal, the first British medal awarded to soldiers regardless of their rank.
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Now the National Army Museum in London has identified (Thomas) James as the likely subject of an “extraordinarily rare” painting from 1821, which it has attributed to the artist Thomas Phillips, whose more typical sitters were Georgian luminaries such as the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron.
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James, an illiterate percussionist in the 18th Light Dragoons, was likely to have been born enslaved in Montserrat, the West Indies, in 1789. Little is known about his early life. By the time he enlisted in 1809, he had made his way to Sussex, where slavery had been abolished, and was describing himself as “a servant”.

He was awarded the Waterloo Medal after being wounded fighting a band of Prussian soldiers who had deserted and tried to loot his officers’ belongings.
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