Napoleonic war (I think!)

[AsH62]

Please can anyone help me. I am looking at Henry Thorp, he was born in Southwick, Fareham, Hampshire in 1796 and I am reasonably sure that his mother was called Margaret. In 1835 there was the first of many newspaper articles about him in the Western Times (21 Nov 1835), he was the perpetual curate here in Topsham where I live and research, it said that before he '... beat his sword into a ploughshare, became a minister of the Gospel' he had been in the army but resigned when Peace was declared. He was then on the parish of Peter Tavy in Devon and in 1818 was in Awliscombe where he got married. He sounds like a truly terrible curate and at one time had 71 of his parishioners taken in procession to the Exeter Inquisition in the Holy Ghost Chapel for not paying church rates.
I can find a lot about him in Topsham but despite weeks of searching I can't find any evidence of him in the army. This either means that I am not looking in the right place or that there is yet more sculduggery going on and he was never in the army. Please can someone with more knowledge of military history help me find out which of these is more likely.
Thank you
Alison

[teragram31510]

Hello Alison,
<he had been in the army but resigned when Peace was declared.>

If born 1796 he was pretty young at the time then, 19 in 1815, to have been in the army AND already have done some kind of training for the church to be appointed to Peter Tavy. Or am I misreading the information?

Can't help with military history, sorry, but the dates struck me.

[hanes teulu]

Can't help with early army career but education/church career can be found on the Clergy of the Church of England database.

[AsH62]

He was what was known as a perpetual curate not a regular one so I don't know how much training if any he had to have. I can't find any trace of what his profession was in 1818 when he got married and there are no dates for his time on Pete Tavy so I am a bit at a loss.

[AsH62]

Wow - I've just found him in the Church of England Data base - thank you. More information about him
Alison

[Bookbox]

Henry Thorp, he was born in Southwick, Fareham, Hampshire in 1796

Venn gives his age as 21 on matriculation at Cambridge (Christ’s College), on 12 December 1815, so born 1794.
https://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/Documents/acad/2018/search-2018.html

[hanes teulu]

Ancestry has list of Cambridge Alumni. Cannot view details but there is a Henry Thorp, died 1857. The date entered college is blanked out (I don't subscribe)

[Bookbox]

No suggestion in the published Christ's College Register that he had served in the Army, but that doesn't mean he didn't ...

https://archive.org/details/biographicalregi02peiluoft/page/380/mode/2up?q=thorp

You could try contacting the college librarian at Christ's, in case they have anything else on him ...
library@christs.cam.ac.uk

[GrahamSimons]

If he was of the class to become a priest, he'd almost certainly have served as an officer. This guide is helpful:
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-officers-1913/
Perpetual curates were not the same as curates; instead they had a status very approximately similar to a vicar only they weren't entitled to tithes or glebe. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_curate