This work depicts a view of the Great Hall, the Royal Hospital Chelsea, with pensioners in blue uniforms sat at the tables reading. Flags and pictures adorn the walls beneath the large upper windows. Over the last 320 years, the Great Hall has had a varied career as games room, reading room, examination room, and the scene for the Duke of Wellington’s lying in state. In addition, it has been the location for two notable courts of inquiry, one involving General Wellesley, as the Duke was then known, after the infamous Convention of Cintra during the Peninsula War; and then again to review the events surrounding the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. However, latterly it has been the dining room for the Chelsea Pensioners, the stands of arms on the walls having been replaced by portraits of the various monarchs during the Hospital’s long tenure on site.