Thanks Heywood,
The bit about John Bleach having been a private is interesting, and resonates with a piece of oral history that got passed down to my grandmother and her sisters (the g-granddaughter of Margaret Ryan); that Margaret Bennett / Bleach / Ryan and her husband came to South Africa as a result of the Xhosa Wars.
So there may be an element of fact, but regarding her first husband, not her second. It seems that John Bleach (Margaret Ryan's first husband) died in Queenstown sometime before 1865, and she married Jonathan Bennett (my own ancestor).
Your comment about the regiment is useful - I think it was 85th, based on below, and your newspaper snippets; but in South Africa possibly also the Cape Mounted Rifles (
https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk) has a John Bleach in the right timeframe in both; it is viable that they
could be the same person, although the John Bleach in the 2nd is a puzzle:
John Bleach 1853 Cape Mounted Rifles
John Bleach 2441 Private 1851 85th (Bucks Volunteers) The King's...
John Bleach 2038 Private 1851 2nd (The Queen's Royal) Regiment...
Neither 85th nor 2nd seem to have served in Ireland at the right time, but I may be looking in all the wrong places.
Hmmmm, re-reading this, and something about the 2nd on Wikipedia (source of all knowledge) caught my eye ... some of them were the regiment on the HMS Birkenhead when she famously went down with 'women and children to the lifeboats first' ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Royal_Regiment_(West_Surrey)#The_Victorian_eraNot knowing much about UK military history (so far only one ancestor of mine was in the UK military, and he was honourably discharged for being kicked in the groin by a horse ... impressive that he lived to produce offspring
), I'm interested that a private could have travelled with his wife, but I suppose the fact that she arrived here does indicate that.
The certificate I will definitely look into, with finding a Ryan in Ireland being akin to a needle in a haystack, I think that will be my only option. I was hoping for PR's which often give useful information as well, but the RC records for Scarborough seem to be thin on the ground; although I'll carry on looking.
Thanks again for the interesting info...
Regards,
Patricia