An ancestor with Occupation: Pensioner (Chelsea)

[JackYorkshire]

I have an ancestor on the 1851 England Census with Occupation: Pensioner (Chelsea). He's living in West Yorkshire. Does this mean he was in the miltary and how might I go about finding out what his role was and where he fought?

I'm new to geneology, so thanks in advance.

[ShaunJ]

Yes it does mean he's an army pensioner.

What's his name? Where and when was he born?

[Rockford]

Hello

The Royal Hospital Chelsea processed all of the UK's army pensioners - some were 'in-pensioners', who lived at the hospital itself, and others (like your ancestor) were 'out-pensioners' who received a pension but lived elsewhere.

There are some records available on Ancestry:

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/3255/?_ga=2.256008587.1423770697.1704208333-50050383.1704208333&geo_a=r&geo_s=us&geo_t=uk&geo_v=2.0.0&o_iid=41013&o_lid=41013&o_sch=Web+Property

And through Fold3:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/61068/

The starting point is obviously the person's name. The difficulty might be confirming which of any possibilities might be your ancestor by matching what you know about them to the pensioner records - especially if they have a fairly common name.

Best wishes

Rockford

[JackYorkshire]

Thank you! William Booth born Bradford, Yorkshire about 1786.

I may have found him - thanks Rockford!

Here's the link:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/3255/images/40941_307082-00546?treeid=&personid=&queryId=0885d52c-1573-471f-94bd-2bd1fa056be4&usePUB=true&_phsrc=STA591&_phstart=successSource&pId=129845

I'm really not sure what the attached says.

[ShaunJ]

Chronic pulmonic infection (?)

Not sure about the third word. On the next page it looks more like affection but that can't be right

[LizzieL]

maybe affliction

[Milliepede]

I thought "affliction" too.

[bearkat]

I wonder if it is a mis-pelling of pulmonary effusion

[arthurk]

Chronic pulmonic infection (?)

Not sure about the third word. On the next page it looks more like affection but that can't be right

It could be. Chambers Dictionary gives 'disease' as one of the definitions of 'affection'. It may not be current usage, but if the condition affected him, then it might be described as an affection (cf infected/infection).