82 x 107 mm. A head and shoulders, full face portrait of Colonel Sir William Owen Lanyon (1842-87), Administrator of the Transvaal, March 1879-1881, when he was instructed to relinquish the office owing to his original misjudgements over Boer strength and feeling. Lanyon’s previous career had been a varied one of soldiering and administration in several countries. Joining the army in 1860, he served in the West Indies from 1865-73 (ADC and private secretary to the Governor of Jamaica 1868-73) with Sir Garnet Wolseley in the Ashanti Campaign 1873-4, as Colonial Secretary on the Gold Coast in 1874 and as Administrator of the Crown Colony of Griqualand West 1875-9. He later served in the Egyptian Campaigns of 1882 and 1885.