University of Kent acquired panorama collection of Christopher Lennox-Boyd

The University of Kent has acquired the panorama collection of the late Christopher Lennox-Boyd.

(by Ian Beckett)

There are 59 separate items but this includes an additional 23 items in an album. The majority are anamorphotic orientation plans, keys, or descriptive explanations, many for panoramas shown at the Barker rotundas in Leicester Square and in the Strand. The collection includes, for example, the panoramas of Constantinople (1801), Rome (1804), Dover (1809), The Battle of Corunna (1814), The Battle of Paris (1815), The Battle of Waterloo (1816), Athens (1818), Spitzbergen (1819), Madrid (1826), and Sydney (1829). There are also some for the rotunda in Spring Gardens such as versions of the Battle of Alexandria by both Robert Ker Porter and Samuel James Arnold. In addition, there are some programmes for other exhibitions such the poecilorama at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly (1826), and the cosmorama in Dublin (1829). The ‘Colosseum’ in Regent’s Park is also represented with a descriptive catalogue. Overall, the collection presents a fascinating picture of the extraordinary variety of panoramas on show in London in the first two decades of the nineteenth century.

The Lennox-Boyd panoramas complement the University’s existing Special Collections, which include the British Cartoon Archive, and its Theatre Collections, comprising a number of large and varied archives of theatrical texts, ephemera, documents and images.

For information, contact specialcollections@kent.ac.uk