Was William Booth always in the 2nd battalion of the 84th Foot?

[JackYorkshire]

I'm struggling to work out exactly which regements William Booth was in during his service from 1 Aug 1804 to 12 Sep 1820.

William Booth
Born Abt. 1785, Bradford (maybe Calverley), Yorks, England.

From his Soldier's Service Documents (84th Foot) it looks like he was in the 84th (York and Lancaster) Regiment of Foot for his whole service - the 2nd Battalion was raised in Lancashire in January 1809 apparently:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/84th_(York_and_Lancaster)_Regiment_of_Foot

However, there's also the West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales's Own) 14th Foot, which The 14th formed a second battalion in Belfast in 1804:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Yorkshire_Regiment

From the Regimental Registers of Service, 1756-1900 for the 52nd Foot, William Booth from Coverly, York (Coverly doesn't exist, so potentially Calverley) joined the 52nd at Dover 10 Apr 1809 from the 2nd W. Yorks. This may have been where the 84th was before shipping out to the Walcheren Campaign in the Netherlands in Oct 1809.

Apparently for the 14th:
The 2nd Battalion sailed to Corunna and were part of Sir John Moore's army that retreated in such terrible conditions in the winter of 1808-9 and then went on to Walcheren. In 1809 the 14th exchanged territorial titles with the 16th Foot so that the 14th became the Buckinghamshire Regiment and the 16th the Bedfordshire Regiment.
From:
https://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armyunits/britishinfantry/14thfoot.htm

I'm new to family history research and know nothing at all about military history research. How can I work out which regiment or regiments William Booth was in? At the moment I'm just struggling to work out which regiment was where and when.

Could anyone help me here? Also are there any more detailed resources I should be looking at for regimental history?

Thank you for your help!

[Andy J2022]

I have a number of queries.

How sure are you that the William Booth who joined the 84th Foot on 1 Aug 1804 is the man you are interested in?
- is it just based on the Calverley/Bradford connection and the two men being about the same age?

Next, what evidence do you have that he was in the 2nd Battalion? The Chelsea Hospital records only shown him as serving in the 84th. As you say, the man who joined the 84th in 1804 served continuously with that Regiment for 16 years and 165 days before being discharged due to chronic pulmonary problems.

Next, what makes you think that he might have been in the 14th Foot? Again is it just the mention of a Calverley/Coverly connection? Clearly this man can't be the same man who joined the 84th in 1804 and didn't leave until he was 35 years of age.

There were dozens of William Booths in the Army over this period so you need a very strong connection to a particular one to be sure you are looking in the correct Regiment. Also bear in mind that by no means all the service records from that time have survived. If a man didn't qualify for a pension before he died, there may be no record of his service at all.

Have you found him in the 1841 census or a marriage certificate where he is listed as an Army pensioner or something similar?

If you haven't already seen it this National Archives Research Guide might be useful: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-soldiers-up-to-1913/

Once you are reasonably sure that you have the right man and regiment, you can usually use the muster and pay rolls to discover a bit more about his service career, for instance where he served. However this will probably mean a trip to TNA as most of the muster rolls have not been digitzed. More details here: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-muster-rolls-pay-lists-1730-1898/

[JackYorkshire]

How sure are you that the William Booth who joined the 84th Foot on 1 Aug 1804 is the man you are interested in?
- is it just based on the Calverley/Bradford connection and the two men being about the same age?

Have you found him in the 1841 census or a marriage certificate where he is listed as an Army pensioner or something similar?

Yes, he's a Chelsea pensioner. There are a lot of William Booths, but I'm sure the one I'm tracing was in the army and returned home around 1820 or 1821.

Next, what evidence do you have that he was in the 2nd Battalion? The Chelsea Hospital records only shown him as serving in the 84th. As you say, the man who joined the 84th in 1804 served continuously with that Regiment for 16 years and 165 days before being discharged due to chronic pulmonary problems.

I'm not sure the William Booth I'm looking for is the one in the 84th, he could potentially be the one in the 14th. I'm looking at this if you can see it:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/3253/images/40940_2000729097-00608?treeid=&personid=&rc=&queryId=f7797e7a-7938-40ec-a2ba-1938fa37ec03&usePUB=true&_phsrc=STA810&_phstart=successSource&pId=165463

Source Citation:
The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; Class Number: WO 25; Class Title: 52 Foot; Piece Number: 406; Piece Title: 52 Foot

Next, what makes you think that he might have been in the 14th Foot? Again is it just the mention of a Calverley/Coverly connection? Clearly this man can't be the same man who joined the 84th in 1804 and didn't leave until he was 35 years of age.

Is that true? How do you know he can't be the same? Would it say if he left and rejoined?

One thing I'm finding confusing is that there seem to be several Yorkshire and West Yorkshire regiments and battalions, and they change names and merge with other regements and go to the same places e.g. the 14th and 84th in Portugal.

There were dozens of William Booths in the Army over this period so you need a very strong connection to a particular one to be sure you are looking in the correct Regiment. Also bear in mind that by no means all the service records from that time have survived. If a man didn't qualify for a pension before he died, there may be no record of his service at all.

I'm using Ancestry, are there any other records I could look out for? Are there pension records that I could identify then trace back to a regiment?

If you haven't already seen it this National Archives Research Guide might be useful: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-soldiers-up-to-1913/

Once you are reasonably sure that you have the right man and regiment, you can usually use the muster and pay rolls to discover a bit more about his service career, for instance where he served. However this will probably mean a trip to TNA as most of the muster rolls have not been digitzed. More details here: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-muster-rolls-pay-lists-1730-1898/

Thank you  I'll have a look at those.

[JackYorkshire]

If I search WB and 1785 +/- 2 yrs I only get 5 results on Chelsea on Findmypast, but I can't see anything. I get 15 results on Ancestry:
1 is US
3 are Lancashire
1 Wicklewood
1 Lothian
2 Stafford
1 Dublin 33rd foot
1 has the Pension Admission Place as Dublin so I assume that wouldn't apply to someone who lived in West Yorkshire for the rest of their life?

1 is the discharge we're talking about after 16 years and 165 days.

2 show a transfer of WB from Coverly from the 2nd Yorks to the 52nd Foot on 10 Apr 1809.

1 would be very helpful, but I can't see it:

[JackYorkshire]

He's one of these, I just need to work out which:

[JackYorkshire]

Sadly the bottom 2 are on Find My Past.

[JackYorkshire]

Hmm. I'm not sure how I would know which of these WB is as Idle is in Bradford. I think I need to just head off to bed. It's got a bit too difficult tonight 

[Andy J2022]

Hi Jack,

 I think it might be helpful to know what what else you know about  WB. For example have you found his baptism or some other evidence for his date of birth? Where do you think he was born/lived before joining the Army? Yorkshire is a big place, and even if we concentrate on West Yorkshire around Bradford, there are still going to be quite a few William Booths. Next, apart from the Chelsea records, do you have any other collateral information about him previously being in the Army? As you are aware the size of the Army grew substantially  around 1800-1816 as Britain faced the threat from Napoleon, which in turn means many William Booths will have ended up in the Army or the Militia around that time.

Unfortunately I don't have access to Ancestry (at home) or Fold3 and mainly rely on FindMyPast. They have most of the same basic Chelsea records as Ancestry, but their search works differently so may not bring up all the same results.

Turning to the 3 TNA references you found, I would have thought that if you have a fairly accurate date of birth for your WB, you should be able to eliminate either the Calverly/3rd Foot Guards or the Bradford 84th Foot entries. As for the Idle/Royal Marines entry, if he was in the RM he wouldn't have been a Chelsea Pensioner - he would have been administered by the Royal Naval Hospital, Woolwich.

And returning to one of your earlier questions, if the man from Bradford who joined the 84th is the most likely candidate, then yes he served continuously for the full 16 years 165 days in that regiment without a break. Thus he can't be the man who joined any of the other regiments with a Yorkshire connection, unless this happened after 12 Sep 1820. However if that was the case I would expect his Chelsea record to show both sets of service dates as this would lead to a larger pension. 

The other thing to compare is the physical description of the various men. The WB in the 84th was 5ft tall when he was discharged. The man from Idle who joined the Royal Marines was 5'2". The man from Calverly who joined the Guards would have had to be over 5'6". If you can find similar details for the man who joined the 14th Foot  etc that may help eliminate him, or at least show that he didn't transfer from another regiment.

The screenshot which includes the image from Fold3 says the man born on Bradford in 1784 was in the 4th Garrison Battalion. This suggests he was a gunner (Royal Artillery) whereas all the others we have discussed were in the Infantry (even the Royal Marine).

[JackYorkshire]

Thanks Andy, I really appreciate your help on this.

I don't have very much on him before the 1841 census. These are the facts I know for sure about WB:
17 Jan 1821 - married at St Wilfreds, Calverley to Lydia Holmes (she was baptised at St Wilfreds, Calverley) - no parents listed.
9 Aug 1822 - he was a wool comber and his daughter Harriet was baptised (Bradford, St Peter)
4 Jul 1824 - he was a wool comber and his son Jeremiah was baptised (Bradford, St Peter)
Oct 1825 - he was a wool comber and his daughter Hannah was baptised (Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bradford)
13 Nov 1825 - he was a wool comber and his daughter Hannah was baptised (Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bradford)
12 Mar 1826 - lived Wapping Bradford (near St Peter's) and his son Jeremiah was buried (Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bradford)
27 Jan 1828 - he was a wool comber and his daughter Sarah Ann was baptised (Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bradford)
May 1830 - he was a wool comber and his son Alfred was baptised (Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bradford)
May 1832 - he was a wool comber and his daughter Martha was baptised (Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bradford)
Sept 1834 - he was a wool comber and his daughter Mary was baptised (Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bradford)
6 Jun 1837 - he was a wool comber and his son John was baptised (Primitive Methodist Chapel, Bradford)
1841 census - he's 55 and a wool comber from Yorkshire.
1851 census - he's 65 and a Pensioner (Chelsea) from Bradford, Yorkshire.
1861 census - he's 75 and a Chelsea Pensioner from Bradford, Yorkshire.
19 Jul 1866 - Death certificate: Male, 80 years, Woolcomber, Senlie Gangrene 3 weeks, exhaustion. Hannah, his daughter, was present when he died.

That's all I'm certain of.

So on that basis, I'm sure he got a Chelsea Pension and I'm sure he was born in or close to Bradford (potentially Bradford, Calverley, Idle or Tong). I'm not sure which of the 3-4 birth records I can find are his.