Help interpreting a record, please

[SmallTownGirl]

There's a dataset on FindMyPast called "Scots Guards 1799-1939" and there I've found an Edward Houghton b 1847.

In the final column it says something like

"(Musician) Transfer from 2/17th Regt (re-engag …)
Disch by purchase 22/11/1877"

I know he was in the 17th Foot (later the Leicestershire Regiment) but am I right that nowhere does it say when he transfrerred from the 17th to the Scots Guards?

His children were born in Jersey (1870) and in Aldershot (1872) - these two certainly while he was still in the 17th Foot - and then three others in/around the London area between 1873-1878, so he obviously wasn't abroad with any Regiment during those years.

I see he was 14 when he enlisted in 1861.  Would that have been for a specific number of years?  Would that help decide whether the reference to re-engagement was with the 17th or the Scots Guards?

Any help appreciated.
Thanks
STG

[MaxD]

My suggestion is that what is missing is the date of his transfer in to the Scots Guards.  The 1861 enlistment at 14 would have been for 21 years in the army (one's commitment was to the army not to a particular regiment) from the age of 18.  The births in 1870 and 1872 do coincide nicely with the 2nd Battalion 17th Foot in Jersey and Aldershot in those years.  He bought himself out in 1877 because he had only served 12 (ish) years man's service and his engagement had not yet run out.
Looking at some of the other dates, there is a preponderance of 1874 enlistments which may well be when he transferred.  Both battalions of the Scots Guards seem to have been in London in the 1873-78 period.  2nd Battalion 17th Foot went to Ireland in 1874 which may have been the spur to him transferring?

MaxD

[SmallTownGirl]

Many thanks, that all makes perfect sense!

Mwah 
STG

[SmallTownGirl]

Sorry, me again!

Is an enlistment age of 14 realistic?  Wasn't there a minimum age?  He was a musician/bandsman, so maybe the rules were different for them?

I appreciate that the Army wasn't too strict on fact checking for recruits, so they'd have probably have taken at face value whatever he said his age was (within in reason, of course).

Thanks again
STG

[MaxD]

Totally realistic.  The army took on boys as boy musicians, boy buglers, trainee drummers, trainee tailors, some as clerks even,  from (officially) 14 in them far off days! Even younger ones may well have snuck in given the lack of age checking mechanisms in the pre Facebook era.


MaxD

[SmallTownGirl]

Totally realistic.  The army took on boys as boy musicians, boy buglers, trainee drummers, trainee tailors, some as clerks even,  from (officially) 14 in them far off days! Even younger ones may well have snuck in given the lack of age checking mechanisms in the pre Facebook era.


MaxD

Brilliant!

Many thanks
STG

[SmallTownGirl]

Would they have needed a parent's permission for a 14yo boy to enlist - or weren't they fussed either way, please?

[diplodicus]

The school leaving age was only raised from fourteen after the second world was (part of the reform now know as "The Butler Act"). Many of my childhood friends' elder brothers and sisters had left school at fourteen (lucky boys did seven-year apprenticeships).

[MaxD]

Officially - enlistment at 14 and 15 - yes!  Still the case at the start of the Great War.

MaxD

Diplodicus - you may have missed the fact that this was 1847, even school attendance wasn't compulsory until 1880 and then only to age 10.