The Heroes of Ladysmith Marching through London

A Boer War celebration - but with the war still raging

These celebrations, filmed passing the gates of Buckingham Palace in May 1900, are perhaps a little premature - the Boer War was far from won. But this high-angle footage of a large parade of the ‘Heroes of Ladysmith’ demonstrates the public appetite for good news from South Africa. However, despite the bombast on show here, the war was entering its third – guerrilla – phase, notorious for the disproportionately cruel response of the British. Did films such as this contribute to the popular repression of other aspects of the war?