... The UK army records state the Jacob Tittensor spent 5 years in Australia and was discharged on 3rd January 1838 with a "broken constitution" after 28 years 129 days service. ...
It will be great to find out a bit more about where he was (Emu Plains and the Cox’s River Stockade).
I see your Jacob Tittensor was aged abt 42 when discharged. I can’t see his service record to glean more information, but a "broken constitution" could mean many things.
I do know that there was a huge amount of drinking in the military at this period, and men succumbed to alcoholism. Or, he may have succumbed to the climate and general working conditions in Australia.
Emu Plains began as a government prison farm which employed convict labour.
A bit of history here:-
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/100979574Cox’s River was another penal settlement. The convicts here were employed on building the main western road across the Blue mountains, and constructing the associated bridges and digging road cuttings. Many of the convicts sent here were serial offenders, and were in chain gangs. It would have been very hard physical work.
The stockade was a sizeable construction, enclosing convict huts, overseers' huts, a guard house, barracks, military quarters and store, two hospitals, a cooking hut, blacksmith shops, a butcher's shop and a baker's shop.
Nice picture here:-
https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/convict-stockade-coxs-river-crossing-near-hartleyPlenty to read here:-
http://www.hartleyvalley.org.au/heritage/that-den-of-infamy-the-no-2-stockade-coxs-river/In both places, I would think (but don’t know) that Private J. Tittensor would probably have been guarding and overseeing the convicts in their work.
Once you go through the files (per link posted) and find additional information for Jacob Tittensor, I will try to fill you in some more.
