TO MARK 200 years since the Battle of Waterloo, the Wordsworth Trust is staging the first-ever exhibition to present William Wordsworth and other writers of the Romantic period as war poets.

Wordsworth, War and Waterloo runs at the Grasmere trust until November and ties in with the Battle of Waterloo, which on June 18, 1815, brought 23 years of bloody war to a close when a British and allied army commanded by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington defeated the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte.

The trust's curator, Jeff Cowton, said: “For me the exhibition captures the essence of Wordsworth as a young man, standing up for the poor, as well as the older Wordsworth becoming anti Napoleon. His poetry speaks for the dispossessed and for the rights of freedom against an evil Emperor. This is a far cry from ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’.”

Wordsworth, War and Waterloo will display handwritten manuscripts of William Wordsworth’s war poetry alongside stunning pictures, satirical cartoons and fascinating physical objects from the conflict which pitted Britain and her allies against France. These include a cannon from Nelson’s flagship, cannonballs from the battle of Salamanca and a gruesome collection of teeth, taken from the dead on the battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars.

Visitors will discover how the dramatic events of the war changed the lives of people across Britain, including women and children. With a particular focus on artistic and literary responses to the conflict, Wordsworth, War and Waterloo will demonstrate how war shaped Wordsworth’s ideas about his own role as a poet and how he felt towards the major military and naval figures of the period – Admiral Horatio Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, and, in particular, Napoleon Bonaparte.

The exhibition will tell the story of the poet’s changing responses to the war that began in 1793 and culminated with Wellington’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. From being a supporter of the French model, Wordsworth became a vehement critic of Napoleon, writing: “My soul was with those who were resolved to fight it out with Bonaparte.”

Years after the battle, Wordsworth visited Waterloo and was moved by the “. . . horror breathing from the silent ground.”

The exhibition will be illustrated with a number of important paintings, drawings and cartoons from the period, bringing together Benjamin Robert Haydon’s portraits of Wordsworth, Wellington and Napoleon for the first time outside London. It will also feature a range of cartoons by the brilliant caricaturist James Gillray, and will display JMW Turner’s sketchbook from his visit to the site of the battle.

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