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General => Armed Forces => Topic started by: Corse21 on Saturday 01 November 25 09:04 GMT (UK)
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Need some assistance from any army experts out there. Especially during Napoloenic era.
I've tried without success to find a marraiage for a soldier netween 1790-1815 for a long time. All the usual and well-known sources have not revealed anything.
The man in question was an ordinary soldier in the 51st Regt of Foot from 1790 to 1805. He then received a commission (without purchase) in 1805 and was an officer until 1817 when his regiment was reduced. He seems to have been in Ceylon from 1800 - 1819. He returned to UK going on half-pay. I have a copy of his 1828 half-pay record.
He had children during this time and I know the mother's name which is a European name. No luck finding any baptism records either.
my questions and help revolves around;
1. would he have required permission from CO to marry?
2. where would marriage take place if not in church. Maybe by declaration or just simply declaring it in front of witnesses?
3. Am I missing anything else or sources to search?
thank you
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Perhaps you could give us his name, and his wife's name?
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Hello Shaun
John White attested 51st 16 April 1790 born Ayshire, Scotland.
Johanna Day is wife.
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The 51st were only in Ceylon for 7 years, from 1800. In summary, the battalion was stationed as follows:
1792 Gibraltar
1793 Toulon
1794 Corsica
1796 Elba
1797 Portugal
1798 Cape of Good Hope
1798 India
1800 Ceylon
1803 Kandian war (Ceylon)
1803 Ceylon
1807 England
1808 October at sea (embarked at Falmouth)
1808 Spain
1808 Peninsular war
1809 January at sea (embarked at Corunna)
1809.01.25 England
1809 Walcheren
1811.02.19 Portugal
1811 Peninsular war
1814 France: Bordeaux
1814.06.17 at sea (embarked at Bordeaux)
1814.06.25 England: Plymouth
1815.03.30 Belgium: Ostend
1815 Waterloo
1815 France Army of Occupation
1816.01.02 at sea
1816.01.03 England: Dover
1821 Ionian Islands
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Thanks Andy very useful.
I suppose the marriage could have taken place in any othe locations listed.
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And to answer one of your earlier questions, I think it most unlikely that he married without his Commanding Officer's permission, especially if this occurred after he was commissioned. As someone commissioned from the ranks he would have been very conscious of the need to follow etiquette, especially if he didn't come from the same social background as his fellow officers. Are you sure he was commissioned into the 51st? It was not uncommon for men like him to accept a commission in a different regiment to avoid the issue of how to deal with soldiers who were formerly his associates. Very often men commissioned after a long service as a soldier (15 years in his case) would be employed as a quartermaster, or a paymaster, if sufficiently numerate.
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Just to answer Andy's question, JW appears to have been commissioned into the 3rd Ceylon Regiment as a Lieutenant in August 1805.
Here is his service history as an officer from the 1828 return:
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It seems likely that he was married in Ceylon circa 1804 or possibly earlier. The first surviving child that we know of (John George White) was born in Colombo in May 1805.
My guess is that Johanna Day (some trees have the name as Daly) was the daughter or widow of a fellow soldier.
Unfortunately there are very few online church records available from that era in Ceylon. I've had a quick look in the indexes at https://www.kabristan.org.uk/ but I don't see anything there for this couple.
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Andy and Shaun
Many thanks for your efforts and posts.
He did go from the ranks without purchase as you can see fro the 1828 record. He came home in 1819 but Johanna died in 1820 in Scotland. He married again in 1821.
I think your conclusions are right, but there is unlikely to be any documentary evidence of marriage / permission etc.
From what you say some soldiers and officers obviously had their wives with them from UK.
Drew
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Drew,
Building on Shaun's research, it's clear that John White was not yet commissioned when his son was born, which presumably means that he also married before he was commissioned. I think it is likely that he reached the rank of Sergeant during his 15 years' soldier service and I agree with Shaun's hypothesis that Johanna was either the widow of another soldier (probably a sergeant) or the daughter of a fellow sergeant. If she was the latter she would have been much younger than John. Do you know her age when she died? If she was substantially the same age as John then I think that widow of a fellow soldier is the most likely scenario. I wouldn't rule out her being the widow of a soldier in another Regiment which was stationed in Ceylon at the same time, although this is less likely.
John is listed (link here (https://www.ceylondatabase.net/ceylon-british-military.html#3rdCeylon)) as a Captain in the 3rd Ceylon Regiment. Incidentally he was not the quartermaster as I suggested, but given the way that the Regiment was raised I suspect a lot of the officers were ex-rankers. Here's another thread (https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=891054.0) about a soldier from the 51st who was commissioned into the 3rd Ceylon Regiment, albeit later than John White. The 3rd Battalion were largely made up of black slaves from East Africa who were found to be more reliable than the Malays or Sinhalese. The regiment was disbanded in 1817 and so the fact that his entry on the half pay register ends in 1817 suggests that he did not transferred to another regiment but was merely put on half pay (ie retired - officers didn't get pensions).
Do you have the second page to his half-pay register entry? This should tell you more about his marital details and any children. As you know this register comes from WO25 / 762, but I don't have time tonight to trawl through it to find his entry.
The National Archives holds some unspecified documentation on the battalions of the Ceylon Regiment in WO17 / 233 (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C601110) if you are able to visit Kew.
This article (https://rowlands-in-ceylon.blogspot.com/2008/11/chapter-3-1796-british.html) mentions two churches in Ceylon where British officers were married at around the same time. I suggest checking with the India Office Records held by the British Library to see if they have any parish registers or marriage returns for Ceylon. Unfortunately due to the cyber attack the BL suffered two years ago, it is still not possible to access many of their records online.
And finally for now, if your local library has access to JSTOR, this article from the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research Vol. 30, No. 123 (Autumn, 1952) (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44222148) might provide some details about his time with the 3rd Ceylon Regiment.
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Do you have the second page to his half-pay register entry? This should tell you more about his marital details and any children.
It has the details of his second marriage but not the first (and birthdates of the surviving children of both marriages).
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Thank you both once again.
Johanna died in 1820, however the announcement in the paper doesn't give her age. They had a child in 1819 born in Scotland when they came home from Ceylon as was. In the birth entry it says "their 6th child". I'm guessing, but maybe was around 35-40 when she died.
I think she could be a widow in 1805 - but I thin a daughter of a Sergeant seems more likely given that 6 children would then follow.
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Andy and Shaun
When I first found Johanna Day it crossed my mind that she might be Dutch. There was a large Dutch colony in the late 1790's. Johanna seemed Dutch sounding and surname Day might be De something. This is just me trying to be objective - but possibly inaccurate.
Any thoughts?
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Johanna was a fairly common name in the British Isles. Taking the 1851 census as an example, there are 5000 females named Johanna or Johannah, and of those one third were born in Ireland.
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Thank you