The 5th Dragoon Guards was a British army cavalry regiment, officially formed in January 1686 as Shrewsbury's Regiment of Horse. The unit was redesignated as heavy cavalry and was sent to the Crimean War in 1853, taking part in the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854. This photograph shows Private Michael McNamara, of the 5th Dragoon Guards, and was part of a commissioned set of photographs taken at Aldershot for Queen Victoria in 1856.Photograph credit: Hughes & Mullins after Cundall & Howlett; restored by Adam Cuerden