W. Britain's September release is unusually varied — eight new figures across four distinct historical threads, plus something genuinely rare from Tradition of London. Three heads of state (Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, and James Madison), three more Belleau Wood Marines, two U.S.A.A.F. heavy bomber crewmen, and a pair of Officer's Mess vignettes from ToL — the last of which is worth flagging on its own because ToL simply doesn't release new material very often.

The marquee is the historical rulers. Three sovereigns across three centuries and two continents: Tudor England, Regency-era America, Victorian British Empire. It's a rare thing for W. Britain to release three portrait figures at once, and a rarer thing for those three to span such a broad historical range in a single wave.

Three Heads of State: Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, and James Madison

W. Britain has released three sculpted portraits at once, spanning three centuries and two nations. Each is a documented likeness — Henry VIII in the pose familiar from Holbein's court portraits, Victoria in her signature mourning black, Madison in Federal-era coat and breeches. Any collector building a display of historical rulers just got a small windfall.

Henry VIII, King of England (1509–1547)

Henry VIII (10223) was the second Tudor monarch, ruling for thirty-eight years and defining the shape of English religious and dynastic history for centuries afterward. He is best known for two things: his six wives, and his break from the Roman Catholic Church. When Pope Clement VII refused to annul Henry's first marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn, Henry pushed through the Act of Supremacy in 1534 — declaring himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and severing English religious life from Rome. That single legislative act created the English Reformation and the Church of England, and shaped every subsequent English monarch's relationship with organized religion.

Of the six wives, two — Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard — were executed; two — Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves — were divorced or annulled; one — Jane Seymour — died in childbirth; the last, Catherine Parr, survived him. Three of his children became monarchs: Mary I, Elizabeth I, and Edward VI. The W. Britain figure captures him in the robes and cap of the Holbein portraits — the iconic image of English kingship that still defines the visual shorthand for the entire Tudor era.

Queen Victoria (reigned 1837–1901)

Queen Victoria (10224) was the longest-reigning British monarch until Queen Elizabeth II — sixty-three years and seven months on the throne. She came to the throne at eighteen, married her first cousin Prince Albert in 1840, and had nine children whose marriages tied the British royal family to almost every other reigning European house. The Victorian era, named for her, is the historical period she defined by her presence at the top of it — industrial revolution, imperial expansion, the height of British global power.

Prince Albert died in December 1861 when Victoria was forty-two. She wore mourning black for the remaining forty years of her life. The W. Britain figure depicts her in that widowed state: black dress, black mourning veil, and the blue sash of the Order of the Garter. It is the visual most people who know her by sight recognize — the small, black-clad, grave figure of the last decades of her reign. She was proclaimed Empress of India in 1876. She died in January 1901, and her son Edward VII succeeded her.

James Madison, 1805–1815

James Madison (10225) was the fourth President of the United States, serving two terms from 1809 to 1817. Before that he was Secretary of State under Thomas Jefferson from 1801 to 1809 — the "1805–1815" date range in W. Britain's title covers his last four years at State plus his own two terms as president, and specifically brackets the War of 1812 (June 1812 to February 1815), which was fought and concluded under Madison's presidency.

Madison is often called the "Father of the Constitution" for his role in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and for drafting most of the Bill of Rights. He was physically small — often described as roughly five foot four and around one hundred pounds — and reserved by temperament, which made him a poor public speaker but a formidable legislative mind. His wife, Dolley Madison, was one of the most consequential First Ladies in American history and is credited with saving the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington from the White House when the British sacked Washington in August 1814. The W. Britain figure depicts him in the Federal-era dress of his presidency: dark blue coat, waistcoat, breeches, powdered white hair. Small in stature, considerable in consequence.

More Belleau Wood — Three New Marines

W. Britain has now added another three Marines to its growing Belleau Wood series. Combined with the trench-shotgun figure, the standing-firing rifle Marine, the Chauchat gunner, the advancing-with-rifle, and the M1911 NCO from previous releases — all of which we've covered in May and July — the Belleau Wood catalog now runs to roughly a dozen figures. It has become the deepest single small-unit collection W. Britain offers for the American entry into the Great War.

The three September additions:

• U.S. Marine Advancing, No.2 (13097) — a pose variant of the advancing Marine covered in the May dispatch, giving a squad-scale display natural asymmetry
• U.S. Marine Standing Throwing Grenade (13096) — mid-throw pose, the kind of close-support action piece that fills the middle-distance role in a squad-scale display
• U.S. Marine Fighting with German Infantryman (13074) — the dramatic centerpiece of the new group, a two-figure combat piece showing a Marine and a German soldier in hand-to-hand struggle

The Marine-fighting-German figure deserves its own attention. Two-figure combat sculpts are unusual — W. Britain generally releases figures as single sculpts, meant to be combined by the collector. This one is designed as a paired piece, the two men locked together at the moment of contact. For a Belleau Wood display centered on the close-quarters fighting through Bois de Belleau in June 1918, it is the natural anchor.

U.S.A.A.F. Heavy Bomber Crewmen

Two new figures cover American heavy-bomber aircrew, both in specific late-war kit:

• U.S.A.A.F. Heavy Bomber Crewman Wearing B-2 Flying Cap, 1943-45 (10205)
• U.S.A.A.F. Heavy Bomber Crewman with Body Armor, 1944-45 (10215)

The second figure — the one in body armor — is worth explaining because most collectors don't know the story behind the equipment. In late 1942 and through 1943, the U.S. 8th Air Force bomber offensive against German industry was suffering casualty rates that were mathematically unsustainable. Missions frequently lost five percent of the attacking force. A B-17 crewman's statistical chance of completing a full twenty-five-mission tour, at those loss rates, was less than one in three. Most of the wounds coming back with returning crews were caused not by German fighter guns but by small fragments of anti-aircraft flak shells punching through the aircraft's thin aluminum skin at high altitude.

Colonel Malcolm C. Grow, Chief Surgeon of the 8th Air Force, spotted the pattern and moved to fix it. Working with the Wilkinson Sword Company in Britain — better known for making swords for British officers, but experienced with high-quality steel — Grow developed a body armor set for bomber crews: overlapping plates of manganese steel sewn into canvas vests, designed specifically to stop flak fragments before they reached the chest, back, or groin. The first sets went into use in late 1943. By 1944 they were standard issue on 8th AF heavy bomber missions.

The armor was heavy — a full set weighed roughly twenty pounds and made climbing through a B-17's cramped interior awkward — but it worked. The reduction in wound severity was dramatic and well-documented in the wartime medical statistics. Malcolm Grow later became the first Surgeon General of the U.S. Air Force after it became a separate service branch, and the Air Force's principal medical facility, Malcolm Grow Medical Clinic at Joint Base Andrews, is named for him. The W. Britain figure sculpts the flak vest correctly — the plate outlines visible through the canvas cover, the collar cutout, the buckles — a specific piece of documented equipment on a specific figure representing a real innovation that kept a specific generation of bomber crews alive.

Tradition of London's Rare Release — The Officer's Mess Vignettes

Tradition of London — the gloss-tradition, 54mm heritage-style maker whose catalog runs to Napoleonic guards and Zulu War infantry — very rarely releases new sets. When ToL does drop new material, it is worth flagging. This September brings two:

• The Bar at the Officer's Mess (T106)
• The Snooker Table at the Officer's Mess (T107)

Neither is a combat piece. Both are vignettes of British officer's-mess social culture — the after-dinner scenes that defined regimental life in the British Army from the Victorian era through much of the twentieth century. The Officer's Mess was, and in most regiments still is, a central regimental institution: the space where officers ate, drank, socialized, kept regimental silver and battle honors on display, and inducted new officers into the regiment's traditions. Mess evenings were formal affairs. Snooker or billiards after dinner was standard entertainment for generations of British Army officers, and mess bars were often architecturally elaborate and stocked to the standard of a decent London club.

The T106 Bar set and T107 Snooker Table set are ToL rendering that social culture in miniature — officers in mess kit, uniforms in the traditional gloss style, arranged around the two most iconic mess objects. For collectors building a display centered on British regimental life outside of combat, these are unusual and welcome additions.

Given that ToL's release cadence is measured in years rather than months, if you have any interest in these sets it is worth ordering now rather than assuming they will be available indefinitely.

That is the September wave. Three heads of state anchor it, the Belleau Wood catalog keeps growing, the bomber-crew figures add specific late-war USAAF detail with a real medical innovation behind them, and the Tradition of London vignettes give collectors of regimental social life a rare opportunity to add to that shelf.

If you want help pairing any of these figures into a specific display, or you are hunting for something in the W. Britain or ToL catalog we haven't covered yet, write to me at daniel@breagans.com.

— Daniel