91st Argyll Highlanders 6th Foot

[cooper120]

Am trying to find if anyone has a list of soldiers who served in the regiment listed in topic. Am particularly trying to locate John Kearney who was apparently with the 91st as drum major with a regiment number 3587, then transferred to the 6th foot with a new number 2048 in 1870.
Have tried war archives on numerous occasions now and they are no help at all unless I can spend a small fortune.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[redclover]

Hi, With regard to your query, the first thing I would say is that you are talking about two regiments not one.  There may have been a 91st Argyll Highlanders 6th battalion but not 6th Foot. My wife's great-grandfather John Darcy, was born in Ireland, joined the 6th Foot Regiment in about 1846 and then transfered to the 26th Foot Regiment  in about 1866.
I have been told, by an expert in Victorian Army Regiments, that at that time many soldiers transferred regiments to either stay in a place, e.g. India or to avoid going to a posting such as India. Some transferred many times.
Presumably your relative transferred from the 91st Argyll Highlanders to the 6th Foot. The National Archives should have his army record in Section WO97 under the 6th foot regiment. After 1872 soldiers were listed alphabectically rather than by regiment.

Richard.

[km1971]

A list of soldiers is called a muster and the muster books are not available online. They are in bound books in the National Archives in Kew. If you cannot get to Kew you will have to use a researcher. Musters tell you where each man was on the first of each month. So researching these is like researching a person's education using school registers - ie very time consuming, and therefore expensive if you do use a researcher. Also a man who became a Drum Major is likely to have served beyond the standard 12 years.

As you have the date he transferred to the 6th Regiment I assume you have his service record already? If so you already have the basic information, so you need to be clear about what else you are looking for.

In his time the 91st Regiment would have had a Depot and one battalion, so therefore two muster books, but these will be bound together in Kew. However the 6th Foot would have had one (or two) Depots, and two battalions, so there will be at least two muster books for each year. This assumes he was still in a regular battalion in the 6th. A common reason for senior NCOs to transfer was to become part of the permanent staff of a part-time unit. So knowing his battalion in the 6th is very important.

Ken

[raymo]

Cooper120: John Kearney was my Great Grandfather You Might want to visit Ancestry.com and look up the Leybourne family tree, He married Ursula Marisimo (date Unknown) Hope it will help.
Ray