Despatches - Findmypast

My employer has asked me if I'll contribute a fortnightly post to a new blog, "Despatches" on Findmypast. As I already support a wife, three children and ten blogs, adding another to the family is hardly a hardship and something, moreover, that I'm very happy to write.

The image above, used as a header on the Despatches blog, shows my great uncle, John Frederick Nixon, and I'll talk about him in more detail on the next Despatches post, two weeks from now.

Terms of Enlistment

From The Army Book for the British Empire (published 1893)

"The mass of men, ie those for the Line (cavalry and infantry), and the Royal Artillery, enter for seven years with the colours and five in the reserve or eight years with the colours and four in the reserve, if the period of army service expires while the man is abroad. The Foot Guards and the Royal Engineers have the option of the above, or of three years army and nine years reserve service and an additional year of army service if abroad. All recruits for the army Service Corps enter for three years army, and nine reserve, service."

My italics, and explains why you do occasionally see Foot Guards attestations for seven and five, or indeed twelve years (long service).

I've borrowed the excellent photo of Grenadier Guardsmen in 1914 from Christina Broom's People & Places blog.

Wellington's Men on Find My Past

Find My Past has added 130,000+ records of men who served - or who could have served, under the Iron Duke.  The new Napoleonic War Records series (1775-1817) is comprised of the following three datasets:

1. Army of Reserve 1803
26,000+ records from WO 12 (muster books and pay lists) and E 182 (deserter bounty certificates) at The National Archives.

2. Regimental Indexes 1806
97,000+ regimental records from the 1st-50th Regiments of Foot and the Cavalry, Foot Guards and Royal Waggon Train.

3. Foot Guards Attestations 1775-1817
9,000+ records from the 1st Foot Guards