Waterloo soldier James Norris?

[Neil Harvie]

I have an ancestor James Norris from Wiltshire who was a soldier and most likely a Waterloo veteran. I don 't know what regiment he may have been in, but it's very likely he was still in that regiment in ca 1817-1818 in Ireland when his first child William was born. Later both father and son were in Sedgehill Wiltshire. Does anyone have any idea how I would begin to research this?

[ShaunJ]

There is only one James Norris on the Waterloo medal roll.
 
He was a Corporal in 3rd battalion, 95th Foot (in Captain Eeles' company)

[Neil Harvie]

Thanks Shaun. I have seen this fellow before. I have a website www.forces-war-records.co.uk which might have a document showing his name on the medal list. I am more interested in whether that regiment might have gone to Ireland after Waterloo, and James married there, to a Mary, because his first child William was born in Ireland according to the 1851 Sedgehill Wiltshire census, ca 1817-1818. No need to reply if you can't help.

[ShaunJ]

95th Foot became the Rifle Brigade in 1816, and it is possible to track their movements through contemporary newspaper reports of army deployments.

The Caledonian Mercury for 2 October 1817 reports that 3d Battalion Rifle Brigade was then in Dublin.

[km1971]

Hi Neil

The 3rd Battalion Rifle Brigade was disbanded in Ireland in 1819. The two surviving battalions served in Ireland from 1820/21.

The 1841 census has a James and Mary living in Sedgehill. But all the children appear to have been born in Wiltshire. Had the oldest left home by then?

The James Norris who served at Waterloo does not appear on the medal roll for the Peninsular War. This suggests he had died by June 1847. Do you know when your James died?

Ken

[Neil Harvie]

It's likely my James Norris is one of the two men with that name listed in Freebmd.rootsweb.com index as dying in Mere (Wilts) registration district in either June 1842 or December 1843 quarters. He is not in the 1851 Wiltshire census that I could identify. I believe he was baptised at Sedgehill on 20 November 1785, son of William Norris & Elizabeth Crane.
 
A friend found for me on Ancestrylibrary.com the digital image of a document with a James Norris in the 95th Regiment of Foot as a corporal, with the annotation beside his and other corporals' names - "Waterloo Men". I had thought this document referred to recipients of the Waterloo Medal; possibly I am wrong here?

The only real evidence I had about my James being a soldier was in the marriage entry in 1844 for his son William & Eliza Short at Sedgehill, when James is described as "a soldier", plus a family tradition that a Norris ancestor had fought at Waterloo and lost a leg.