Cigarette card artwork - 1930s/40s - Regimental Ghost - 6.25 x 3 inches

Small original artwork, gouache on card, for one of a series of cigarette cards on the theme of ghosts to be produced in the UK by Mardon, Son & Hall most likely in the 1930s/40s. It's not clear if the series ever reached production.

I have given the artist as Alan Bowyer as he has signed some of the other artworks in the same series.

There is an accompanying text which reads:

"In 1810 Jarvis Matcham, a regimental pay-sergeant, appropriated money given him to pay his men. He was summoned to re-join his regiment and lest he should desert, a drummer-boy was sent to accompany him. Matcham killed the boy and escaped to the sea. Returning years afterwards he was paid off at Plymouth, and with another seaman set out to walk to London via Salisbury. A violent thunderstorm frightened Matcham and awakened his conscience. "Who is that little drummer-boy there, and why is he following us so closely?" he whispered to his companion. Unable to endure his agony of mind any longer Matcham surrendered to justice at Salisbury. He was found guilty of murder and executed. "