Admiral Cunningham was born in Demerara, British Guiana, on 13th April 1885. After his parents died in a sailing accident he returned to England and was brought up by relatives in the Lake District. John Cunningham attended Stubbington House School and was a cadet at HMS Britannia where he passed out in 1901. He was judged to have been a boy of great intellect but with few social skills and consequently made few friends.

Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke was one of the most influential war leaders of the Twentieth Century, steering the country’s armed forces through some of the toughest challenges of the Second World War to ultimate victory. Alanbrooke was a military realist, and a seasoned strategic planner after seeing many false assumptions result in the carnage of the First World War.

This detail from Barker's famous painting of The Charge of The Light Brigade depicts Lord Cardigan amongst the Russian guns with the 13th Light Dragoons and 17th Lancers.

Lord Trenchard was one of the founding fathers of the Royal Air Force and was instrumental in securing the Service’s independence and steering it through the difficult post-1918 period when economies and inter-service rivalries posed a great threat to the continued existence of the RAF.

John Gaspard Le Marchant was an able cavalry officer whose awareness of the need for the modernization and reform of military education and training led to the establishment of the Royal Military College at High Wycombe, the precursor of RMC, Sandhurst, and the Army Staff College, Camberley.

Lady Butler (1846–1933) was one of the most prominent female artists of the Victorian era and the only female artist of any merit to concentrate on military subjects.