June 18th, 1815: Napoleon Bonaparte met defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington in Waterloo, Belgium in a battle that has gone down in history as one of the biggest ever.
Two hundred years on, the Albert Hall, Nottingham, is hosting a commemorative dinner to mark the anniversary.
The event, partly organised by Nottingham Professional Services, is not the first celebratory event to take place in Nottingham. There was a battle re-enactment at Wollaton Deer Park at the start of May.
Nottingham Professional Services, which is part of Blusource Ltd, puts on networking events like this on a monthly basis but Blusource chief executive Andrew Springhall admitted this was probably their biggest event so far.
Andrew Springhall, CEO for Blusource Ltd
The ‘Waterloo 200 dinner’ sold out very quickly with 180 people set to grace the Albert Hall.
Andrew said: “It was easy to sell the tickets. We’ve got 18 tables from all of Nottingham’s professional services community.”
“We’ve got a band playing which will almost certainly be starting with ‘Waterloo’ by ABBA and some other good songs along the way as well.”
Chris Taylor, partner at Smith Cooper Accountants in Nottingham is largely responsible for getting the event ready and Andrew wanted to thank him for all his efforts.
He said: “Huge thanks must go to Chris Taylor, he’s been the who has mainly been tasked with organising the whole event and finger’s crossed that he has done a good job”.
Although no Nottingham regiments took part in the battle, the 59th Regiment of Foot (2nd Nottinghamshire regiment) were awarded the Waterloo medal because of their contribution in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.