Royal Hibernian Military School

[luckydog]

I have just found a whole seies of military papers on FindMyPast which relate to my great grandfather Francis Hooper. The Attestations for Regiments document confirms that he was born in Halifax, Yorkshire in 1844. The surprise is that he is enlisting in the 79th Regiment of Foot on the 21st January 1859 in Dublin age 14 years and 7 months.
The next document is from the Royal Hibernian Military School , Pheonix Park , Dublin. This doc. is headed Description Return of the undermentioned Boy Volunteer to the 79th Regiment. It goes on to say that he was 6 1/2 years at this institution in the 1st Division , works in the Tailors Shop. Was the school for everyone joining the army or for the children of serving soldiers.?
This means he was sent to the school when he was 8 years old.

I wonder how an 8 year old boy from Yorkshire ends up in school in Dublin. There is a family story that he may have been illigitimate, the son of a wealthy father and a poor mother. Would a boy have been sent to the army to get him out of the way ?

I can find no proof of his parentage although it does say on his marriage certificate that his father was Francis Hooper, a builder and his mother Mary Small.

Any thoughts about the school etc most welcome. I have a host of other questions about the papers but this will do for now.

Mike

[annswabey]

Details  about him  from the school are here

http://www.rma-searcher.co.uk/Dublin/Tester/RMA_RHMS/RHMSPDF/Name%20index/HACKET.pdf

As you see, his father was in the 69th foot

[luckydog]

Thanks
I managed to find that link after posting my original message here. It answers a few questions and raises more as is the case in family history.
Have contacted the RHMS site in the hope that they may have more info on his parents.
Now I need to look at the muster roll for his fathers regiment and find out if he died on active service.
Mike

[km1971]

Hi Mike

A child could also be sent to one of the two army orphanages if the mother died, and the father was still serving. Other soldier's wives could look after a child for several months, especially if they were overseas. So any death may have been some time before the date he entered the RHMS.

The 69th Foot were in the West Indies when the boy entered RHMS. They would have had a depot in the UK, but I don't know where.

Ken