I think Ancestry have indexed the entry incorrectly. If you go back a page it looks like Y Field Battery, 3rd Battalion Royal Artillery. Field batteries were created for the Crimean war. Before/after they were 2 Company, 3rd Bn.
Are you certain that the 1844 entry is the man you are after - say because it is from a confirmed BMD entry? If so you should give full details of that in the hope we can identify his unit and start from there. There were three men of that name serving in the RA in 1861.
btw...the RA did not have Privates.
Ken
Thanks for the answer Ken, I did not see that second page.
The full details that I have come from his 1844 marriage certificate from Limerick Ireland 1844, his name is down as William Patterson and all it says in private royal horse artillery, nothing else.
By 1851 his wife and two daughters lived in Woolwich, William was not inthe house at the time of the 1851 census and also no where to be found in the 1861 census.
One of his daughters was born in the Kilmainham military hospital in Dublin in 1844 , another daughter in 1851 Woolwich but a birth record from her is no where to be found. Williams wife was Ellen Cronin born in Limerick Ireland 1822.
According to the daughters marriage registration her father was dead by 1871. As you will notice I do not have a clue about the army./artillerry and did not even know that the RHA had no privates
