‘Omnium Gatherum’ [Michael Egerton]
Here and there over the water: being cullings in a trip to the Netherlands…
London: George Hunt, 1825
Harley-Mason.b.135, plate opposite p. 28

Egerton’s wry account of a visit to Waterloo emphasized the advantages that tourism brought to the local economy. He reported how the influx of visitors had so enriched the occupiers of the house where Lord Uxbridge’s leg was amputated that they had been enabled to convert part of the premises into a linen-draper’s shop. Some peasants, on seeing a party of visitors approach, would feign an ‘anxious and diligent search on the ground’ before pouncing on items which they would then try to persuade the tourists were relics of the battle. By 1825, Egerton implied, nothing more significant than buttons remained to be found. This sketch by Egerton, engraved by George Hunt, shows a party of visitors at the ruins of Hougoumont; the white building is a chapel formerly attached to the now-destroyed chateau.

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