John Munday, 18th Royal Irish Regiment of Foot, c 1793-1818

[Bitzer1]

I would appreciate any help in tracing John Munday, who seems to have served in the 18th Royal Irish Regiment of Foot, c 1793-1818.

[ShaunJ]

The few army records that survive tell us that he was born circa 1767 in "Spittle Fields" (presumably Spitalfields) London, served with 18th in India and Egypt, and died in June 1858, aged 90.

[Bitzer1]

Many thanks Shaun J. I had not expected India. In regimental histories for the period, Corsica, Egypt and Jamaica appear. Did his service number survive? Thanks also for his date of death, which I had not found.

[ShaunJ]

Looking at the record again, I see that he enlisted in Corsica which begs the question of what he was doing there beforehand. He was a labourer by trade.

My knowledge that he was in Egypt came from the medal roll. It's not mentioned in his discharge papers which only list "India" service which counted double for his pensionable service. 

[Bitzer1]

Thanks again Shaun.  Very interesting.  Census returns confirm his birth in Spitalfields c 1767.  Regimental histories have the 18th Foot arriving in Corsica in 1794 and in Egypt in 1801, but in the West Indies later.

I don't know how he got to, or what he was doing in, Corsica.  I have now found his discharge papers.  What puzzles me is that they state that he served 25 and 4/12 years in the 18th Royal Irish Regiment of Foot after enlisting on 1 May 1793 in Corsica, but there is also mention of total service of 31 and 3/12 years, with 5 and 11/12 years of that in India, perhaps with a different but unnamed regiment.  Of course, 25 and 4/12 years and 5 and 11/12 years equal 31 and 3/12 years.  However, service in India appears twice as 11 and 11/12 years and 5 and 11/12 years. 

John Munday's Chelsea Pensioner records also give his total service as 31 years and 3/12 months, with 11 and 11/12 years of that in "India Service West".   

Munday seems to have married Mary Keen on 2 August 1787 at St. Leonard, Shoreditch, and then married again as a widower to widow Elizabeth Smyth on 1 February 1819 at St. Matthew, Bethnal Green.   

He appears in the 1841 census as a labourer living in Tavistock Street, Bethnal Green with wife Elizabeth and children John, 18, Esther 15, and Rachael, 11; and again in the 1851 census as a Chelsea Pensioner, living with his wife at 9 Manchester Street, Bethnal Green. Towards the end of his life (1855-56), he appears in the Bethnal Green Orders of Removal and must have been in dire poverty, despite the military pension.  His wife seems to have died in Bethnal Green age 69 in 1856.