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General => Armed Forces => Topic started by: anabanana on Sunday 30 August 20 19:57 BST (UK)
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Good evening,
I am trying to ascertain where the 1st Kings Dragoon Guards might have been billeted in the early-1850s.
1815 Waterloo
1851 Dublin
1852 ???
1853 ???
1854/1855 Crimean War
1855 Sebastapol
1857 - 1860 Second Chinese War
Does anyone know how I could ascertain this information? I am wondering if they could have been stationed in Edinburgh at some point
Thank you,
A
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Jan 52 Newbridge
Dec 52 Dublin
Dec 53 Newbridge
As reported in Stations of the British Army published in newspapers of the time.
Doesn't necessarily exclude the possibility that elements of the regiment were elsewhere. In March 1853 a squadron of 1st KDG were in Blackburn keeping the peace during an election.
MaxD
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I can’t help with 1853/3 but you have missed out the The Battle of Lucknow in 1858 in the Indian Mutiny.
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Jan 52 Newbridge
Dec 52 Dublin
Dec 53 Newbridge
As reported in Stations of the British Army published in newspapers of the time.
Doesn't necessarily exclude the possibility that elements of the regiment were elsewhere. In March 1853 a squadron of 1st KDG were in Blackburn keeping the peace during an election.
MaxD
Thanks for this MaxD. I am on the hunt for Lionel Curtis who fathered a child in Scotland about 1853-1855, we know he was a soldier. And his name is not that common, but there was one such Lionel serving in the Kings dragoons between 1849 and 1861. But if I can't place him to Edinburgh that I guess he's not our man.
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I can’t help with 1853/3 but you have missed out the The Battle of Lucknow in 1858 in the Indian Mutiny.
Thank you Jebber :)
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Presumably this is the Curtis who married Emma Curtis in 1857? Doesn't exclude him from fathering a child in Scotland earlier though! I do find detachments of the KDG in Edinburgh but not until August 1854 in preparation for the Crimea but this is too late?
MaxD
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Presumably this is the Curtis who married Emma Curtis in 1857? Doesn't exclude him from fathering a child in Scotland earlier though! I do find detachments of the KDG in Edinburgh but not until August 1854 in preparation for the Crimea but this is too late?
MaxD
Hi MaxD,
Thank you, yes that's the fellow I am trying to pin down :) . Wow! Aug 1854 is certainly possible. The resultant child was born between 1853 and 1855...I don't have anything more accurate than that as she doesn't seem to appear in any old parish record baptisms/births or statutory births for that matter. The name she went by literally mirrored her father's: Lionel Curtis. She married David Budge in 1875 in Caithness. I found a newspaper article lastnight that mentions her and that her parents married before she was born, but she seemed to believe that her father died in the Crimea. She didn't remain with her mother and seems to have "lodged" with a relative, and then went in to service before getting wed herself. This Lionel who wed Emma Curtis obviously survived the Crimea so either there is another Lionel, or the daughter was wrong in her beliefs.
Is there anyway that I can find more about who of the KDG was in Edinb. in 1854, MaxD?
Thanks again, really appreciate your help :)
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I doubt that you'd find a break down of which men arrived in Edinburgh and when. The newspaper articles are limited to indicating that the headquarters arrived in July 1854 with the main body in September and the regiment were in the Crimea by November. Curtis was back in UK in Oct 1855 (medal roll).
MaxD
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She was aged 5 in the 1861 census so birth circa 1855 seems likely.
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Curtis was back in UK in Oct 1855 (medal roll)
He was "sent to England" on 19 October 1855 and his papers show that he had spent 13 months in the Crimea and Turkey. So presumably he left the UK circa September 1854.
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Thank you MaxD and thank you ShaunJ. It seems like Lionel would have had a small window of opportunity to romance the lady in question and get her with child! But the fact the lady named her wee baby girl after him, going so far as to give her a man's name (or at least a very unusual name for a Caithness child!) suggests she was very fond of this soldier! She married a few years later, but the wee girl seemed to lodge with her mother's relations, and then went in to service.
I don't see any other candidates for the the father. There was a Lionel Curtis born about 1820 but he didnt seem to have ever enlisted.