Hi Ken
Thank you very much for that. I'm most grateful to you for your observations.
I'm sure that your comments regarding the Isle of Wight are correct. In which case, would he have been stationed on the Isle of Wight?
His name was Gabriel Wood and was enlisted into the 19th Dragoons at Northampton on 12/12/1808.
On 20/04/1809 he was transferred to The Royal African Corps on the Isle of Wight and, according to WO12 musters & pay lists, served in Senegal & Goree from 1813 to 1815, was in Sierra Leone during December 1816 and in May 1817 was shown as "on passage to Cape". His military career thereafter seems to have disappeared from the WO12 records.
I understand that four companies of the Royal African Corps were disbanded in 1819, but in his book, The British Army in the West Indies, Roger Buckley writes, "The three penal regiments raised for service in the West Indies were disbanded in 1819, four companies of the Royal African Corps were disbanded in West Africa. The remaining companies were kept in service until 1821, when they were broken up at the Cape Colony." I'm assuming that the "remaining companies" refers to the Royal African Corps, particularly as they were at the Cape Colony.
Gabriel's discharge papers, dated 12/10/1822, clearly state that he was in the Royal African Corps from 20/04/1809 until 29 Oct 1822.
With regard to the question of deserters and criminals, I can only quote from other literary sources:
"On 25th April, 1804, the King approved of the regiment being named the Royal African Corps. This regiment was one of the several penal corps or “condemned battalions” raised about this time which were recruited from deserters and culprits from the hulks; a few [black soldiers], however, were also recruited and attached to this corps."
W.Y. Baldry, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research,
Volume xiv, Number 56 (Winter 1935), pp.233-234.
“The practice of legal escape from prison was readily available to British army deserters. As in the case of culprits and criminals, incarcerated deserters could ordinarily change their prison sentences for service in West Africa and the West Indies.”
again, Roger Buckley, and from the same publication. when referring to both the Royal African Corps and soldiers stationed in the West Indies.
Gabriel's WO16 Disability and Out-Pensions Admission records indicate that he was discharged with the disability of, "extensive Cicatrix on the left ankle", which basically means that he had scar tissue on his ankle, hardly a disability, I would have thought.
However, in the 1851 census, when he was living with his wife at Oundle, Northamptonshire, he was described as a Chelsea Pensioner and 65 years of age. Ten years earlier he was an agricultural labourer.
There is one other conundrum, his discharge papers state that he had been in Africa from 1810, but he cannot be traced in the WO12 records until 1813. He was married at Northampton during December 1808 and a child was born to his wife in 1812, when Gabriel was named as the father and described as a soldier. I'm assuming that members of the Royal African Corps did not enjoy home leave in those days and realise, of course, that Gabriel may not have been the father.
I'm sorry for going on at such length, that had not been my intention at the outset.
Andrew
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Topic: chelsea pensioner research (Read 27601 times)