Potted Histories

Category: Military History

  • Battle Hardened

    Ken Ray, a long-time researcher into the lives of local soldiers has assembled an impressive list of North Staffordshire men who served in the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimea and the numerous colonial conflicts Britain participated in during the 19th and early 20th centuries. He has very kindly given me access to some of his documents which chart the lives and careers of ordinary men from the region who might otherwise have been forgotten. This is one of those stories…

    Private William Walker, 1st Battalion 4th Foot (King’s Own), 

    Napoleonic Wars 

    A soldier of the 4th (King’s Own) Regiment of Foot in the latter years of the Peninsular War. An AI rendering after a drawing by the author.

    There were several men from the Potteries that we know of who served in Wellington’s army in Portugal and Spain during the Peninsular War (1808-1814), but few had quite so impressive a record as Private William Walker of the 4th King’s Own Regiment of Foot who saw action in virtually every major land battle fought by the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Most likely the son of John Walker and Elizabeth, nee Lawns, he was born in Burslem and baptised at Stoke-upon-Trent on 8 October 1775. William seems to have received little or no education and initially found work locally as a potter. He was probably a member of the militia in this time of war, which would explain why he was far from home in Ashford, Kent on 19 June 1799, where he enlisted for ‘unlimited service’ with the 1st Battalion 4th Foot, with which he would serve for the next two decades.

    From his own records at his discharge, it is clear that Walker saw service almost immediately in an expedition to North Holland in 1799, under the Duke of York – the indecisive ‘Grand Old Duke of York’ of nursery rhyme fame. There his regiment took part in the fighting at Castricum on 6 October, a defeat where they suffered heavy casualties. Walker was one of these, receiving a gunshot wound in the left leg, but he survived, was evacuated back to Britain and spent the next few years on home service. In 1804, Walker’s battalion served under a much better commander, the visionary General Sir John Moore at Shorncliffe, where they underwent a rigorous regime of training. From there in 1805, the 1st battalion went to Hanover and later served at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1807. The battalion was back with Sir John Moore in Sweden in 1808, when he was given command of the force sent to the Iberian peninsula to support Portugal and Spain against the French. However, after some initial successes by the Spanish to oust the French invaders, the arrival of Napoleon at the head of a massive army saw the effective collapse of the Spanish forces before them and Moore and his men, including Private Walker, were forced on a 200 mile retreat to Corunna on the northern Spanish coast. It was an epic, gruelling march through mountains thick with snow and the French in close pursuit, but because of the rigorous training they had received under Moore the 4th suffered less hardship than many units. On reaching the coast, Walker with his fellows fought in the Battle of Corunna on 16 January 1809. Sir John Moore was killed in the fighting, but the battle effectively blunted the French attempts to thwart the evacuation of the British Army.

    The next year, though it receives no mention in his records, Walker was probably involved in another near disaster for the British, when the 4th Foot were sent on the Walcheren Expedition in an attempt to capture Antwerp. However, sickness quickly took a hold on the army causing many deaths and the expedition had to be abandoned. The 4th Foot suffered like the other regiments, but was one of the first of the Walcheren units to be sent to join Wellington’s forces in the Peninsula, where the 1st Battalion joined the 5th Division at Torres Vedras near Lisbon in Portugal in November 1810. The following year the 4th Foot took part in the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, but positioned on the far left of Wellington’s line they took no active part in the fighting and received no casualties, though Walker was later to carefully add the battle to his list of engagements. Instead his real baptism of fire in this new phase of the Peninsula War would come in 1812.

    Having evicted the French from Portugal, two fortresses barred Wellington’s safe passage into Spain. The storming of the first of these at Cuidad Rodrigo did not involve the 4th Foot, instead they with many others were sent against Badajoz in the north. A heavily fortified town that had already endured two sieges, Badajoz now underwent a severe bombardment to breach its walls before the troops were sent in. This took place on 6 April 1812 and saw Wellington’s men put to their sternest test with four separate attacks made on the heavily defended breaches. The 5th Division of which the 4th Foot were a part, attacked the San Vincente bastion on the north-west corner of the town. Fighting their way through massed musketry, cannon fire, grenades, mines and lines of wooden poles dotted with blades and spikes, the 4th Foot were badly mauled, but managed with others to get over the wall and into the town, where they fell on the French defending the walls from other attacks and soon afterwards the town fell. The ordeal of Badajoz was not over, though, as driven into a frenzy by what they had endured the bulk of the British troops then went on a two-day rampage of looting, rape and murder through the town. Private Walker though, was not among them, as during the assault he had been shot in the neck and at some point nearby French soldiers had bayoneted him in the left arm and left leg and left him for dead. Again, he would live, but like most of the wounded Walker probably had to wait until the looting army had exhausted itself two days later before he got any medical treatment.

    The final attack on Badajoz, showing British troops assailing the walls with ladders.

    It is a testament to William Walker’s toughness that by July 1812, he was back in the ranks and fit enough to take part in Wellington’s long march and brilliant victory at Salamanca followed by his advance into Madrid. The following year, Walker fought in the battle of Vittoria which sounded the death-knell of the French army in Spain. Walker’s record then reads almost like a tally of the clashes that finally pushed Napoleon’s soldiers back over their own border – Palencia, San Sebastian, Bidassoa and Nive – all of which he seems to have passed through without any injury worth noting. The last action of the regiment before they swapped one war for another, was to help in the blockade of Bayonne just over the French border. Wellington’s army was still there when news reached them of Napoleon’s abdication and the war it seemed was over.

    Released from the war in Europe, in May 1814, Walker’s regiment was sent across the Atlantic to take part in the War of 1812 against the United States of America. He and his comrades were witness to great success at the battle of Bladensburg, where they helped rout the Americans, but disappointment and defeat at Baltimore and again at New Orleans, but a final success in the last clash of the war with the seizure of Fort Bowyer. By this time, though, the belated news that a peace treaty had been signed finally filtered down to the combatants and the British troops withdrew. But though another war had ended, an old one was to briefly flash back into life in dramatic fashion, for in late February 1815, Napoleon escaped from the island of Elba and returned to France. Europe was thrown once more into turmoil and Britain needed its troops for the war that was sure to come.

    What followed became known as ‘The Hundred Days’, Napoleon’s last throw of the dice that ended in his final defeat at the battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. The 4th Foot served with Wellington’s army in Belgium and fought at Waterloo, but it seems that Private William Walker was not with them.  The records of the 4th Kings Own show that the regimental drum major also named William Walker received the Waterloo Medal which was awarded to all those who served in the battle, but there is no evidence that our Private Walker was a medal recipient. Evidence seems to suggest that the William Walker who later claimed four clasps to the Military General Service Medal in 1847-48 for his Peninsula War service was also the aforementioned regimental drum major.

    After peace was finally declared and the occupation of France ended, the 1st Battalion 4th Foot were posted to the West Indies. Two and a half years later on 7 May 1821, at St Ann’s in Barbados, 46 year old Private William Walker was discharged from the army, the reason given that he was worn out from his long years of service and the effects of his wounds. Walker was described as being 6′ ¼” tall, light haired, grey eyed and with a fair complexion. His discharge certificate also indicates that for 4 years and five days of his 22 years and 55 days of service with the 4th Foot he had served as a corporal, but does not indicate when this was, nor why he had been reduced back to private. Whatever the case his conduct as a soldier had been ‘very good’ and the record was careful to note all the battles he had participated in and when he had received his wounds.

    Walker returned to Britain on the first available vessel and his discharge was confirmed by the Chelsea commissioners later that year. What he did, where he went and what the ultimate fate of the old Peninsula veteran was after that remains unknown.

    Reference: The National Archives: WO97 – Royal Hospital Chelsea: Soldiers’ Service Documents, piece 267. Information courtesy of Ken Ray.

  • England Expects

    ‘The Battle of Trafalgar’ by William Clarkson Stanfield
    Source: Wikimedia Commons

    On 21 October 1805, a British fleet of 27 ships commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson caught up with and attacked a combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 33 ships as they made their way towards the Mediterranean. The fleets met off Cape Trafalgar between Cadiz and the Strait of Gibraltar where the British attacked (albeit at a snail’s pace due to lack of wind) in two divisions striking at right angles into the enemy line splitting it into sections and the battle then became a series of small struggles between individual ships or groups of vessels, in which superior British gunnery and seamanship carried the day. Casualties on both sides were heavy, Nelson himself being mortally wounded by a French sharpshooter. Before he died, though, he received news that his fleet had inflicted a devastating defeat on the enemy force, capturing 20 ships, thus ending any immediate threat of a French invasion of Britain. Trafalgar was also the victory that established British naval dominance for the next century.

    Despite hailing from so landlocked a region, several men from the Potteries and neighbouring Newcastle were involved in this decisive sea battle. Two Royal Marines, Corporal William Taft, aged about 30 at the time of the battle, from Hanley Green (modern day Hanley town centre) and Private William Bagley aged 31 from Stoke, served aboard Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, which led one of the two squadrons attacking the Franco-Spanish line and was in the thick of the fighting from the beginning. Bagley got through the battle uninjured, but Corporal Taft was badly wounded in the left arm, which had to be amputated near the shoulder. After the battle and the week of storms that followed it, Taft was transferred to Gibraltar, then to a hospital ship and transported with other wounded back to Britain. He survived, but was pensioned off and his fate after that is unknown. Bagley too returned to Britain early in 1806, but on 26 January he suffered a fall at Chatham and died from his injuries. His belongings were later returned to his daughter Susannah in Hanley.

    At the head of the other British squadron was HMS Royal Sovereign, the flagship of Admiral Collingwood, aboard which was 24 year old Royal Marine Private Richard Beckett from Burslem. The Royal Sovereign had recently had her hull re-coppered and as a result of her clean hull was a faster ship than most and was the first to pierce the enemy line. For most of the battle the ship was engaged in a prolonged duel with a Spanish vessel and suffered heavy damage. Private Beckett, though was fortunate and escaped injury. Equally lucky and untouched that day was another locally born Royal Marine, 29 year old Private Joseph Sergeant from Clayton aboard HMS Prince, which joined the battle late and saw little action.

    Only two local men that we know of, served as sailors in the British fleet that day and both survived the battle unhurt. John Bitts, a 24 year old landsman from Stoke was aboard the frigate Naiad which took no part in the fighting between the bigger ships, but joined in with the mopping up after the battle, while 28 year old ordinary seaman John Williams also from Stoke was part of the carpenter’s crew on board HMS Leviathan, which was one of the ships of the squadron that followed the Victory into the enemy line and captured a Spanish ship.

    Unlike the soldiers who later fought at Waterloo, no special medal was issued for the men of Trafalgar, but all were entitled to a share of the prize money from the captured enemy vessels, plus a special Parliamentary award. In the event some, for whatever reason, did not bother to claim their shares and the monies were donated to the sailor’s hospital at Greenwich. Corporal Taft, the man in most need of the cash, though, did take his share. His prize money came to £1 17s 8d, plus the Parliamentary award of £4 12s 6d, and presumably because of his life-changing injury, Taft also received £40 from the Lloyds Patriotic Fund.

    Reference: The National Archives, ADM 44 Dead Seamen’s Effects; ADM 73 Rough Entry Book of Pensioners; ADM 82 Chatham Chest: ADM 102.

  • Potts’ Luck

    Ken Ray, a long-time researcher into the lives of local soldiers has assembled an impressive list of North Staffordshire men who served in the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimea and the numerous colonial conflicts Britain participated in during the 19th and early 20th centuries. He has very kindly given me access to some of his documents which chart the lives and careers of ordinary men from the region who might otherwise have been forgotten. This is one of those stories…

    Private John Potts, 3rd Battalion 1st Foot (Royal Scots),

    Napoleonic Wars.

    Depending on which document you consult, John Potts was born in either Hanley or Stoke, in either 1784 or 1789, though the latter seems the most likely date as on his discharge certificate the age ’32’ is crossed out and replaced with ’27’, putting his birth in 1789. This accords with other documents which seem to agree on that date. Nothing is known of his parentage, but before joining the army he worked either as a printer or a painter in the pottery industry, though on at least one occasion he simply listed his occupation as a potter; Potts was ever fickle with his personal details.

    There is a hint that Potts may have been a member of the Staffordshire Militia before joining the regular army as when he attested for the 1st Foot at Windsor on 1 February 1808, he did so with several other men from Staffordshire who all indicated previous military service in Staffordshire. John Potts, however, did not specify how long his service had been. After several months of training, he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion 1st Foot on 25 June 1808.

    Potts went on to see service in the latter half of the Peninsular War.  One John Potts later earned two clasps for the Military General Service Medal (awarded to surviving veterans of the Napoleonic Wars in 1847-48) for the storming of  Badajoz in 1812, and the Battle of Vittoria in 1813. This may have been our man, but to further muddy the waters of his service record there were two John Potts in the 3rd Battalion 1st Foot (the other hailed from Roxburgh in Scotland) and the surviving records for both give no indication which of them this was. Our John Potts certainly suffered serious injuries during his service, with gunshot wounds to the head, right arm and leg and left knee. As the Royal Scots only suffered two casualties at Badajoz, (two wounded officers) then John may have got his wounds at Vittoria where the Royal Scots took a severe mauling. However, there is an excellent memoir of the Peninsular War written by Corporal John Douglas of the 1st Foot that mentions a Private John Potts having a miraculous escape from death, but suffering serious injuries, at the siege of San Sebastian in late 1813; and as his account indicates, this was almost certainly our man. We join the story just as the 1st Foot and other regiments are launching an attack against the southern walls of San Sebastian, which was a fortress town situated on a rocky peninsula.

    The attack on the breach at San Sebastian, illustration by Denis Dighton.
    Source: Wikimedia Commons

    ‘On the 25th July the breaches were pronounced practicable, but waiting for the tide to be sufficiently low to admit the men to reach the breach, it was daylight ere we moved out of the trenches; and having to keep close to the wall to be clear of the sea as possible; beams of timber, shells, hand grenades and every missile that could annoy or destroy life were hurled from the ramparts on the heads of the men; to shun which, if they kept further out in the tide, showers of grape and musketry swept them away by half companies. Those who scrambled onto the breach found it was wide and sufficient enough at the bottom, but at the top there was not sufficient room for one file at the curtain and from thence to the street was at least 20 feet. This was a house which was on fire close to the breach, and through which our poor fellows were forcing their way when a shell from our 10-gun battery at the passage side struck the gable and buried nearly a company in the burning ruins. One man alone escaped. The sides of the door being stone fell towards each other, and formed a letter A over him. Though his life was saved by this providential circumstance, he was, I might say, half-roasted, but survived. (I saw him in June 1817, after returning from France, near the potteries in Staffordshire, on the banks of the canal. His face then resembled a new-born infant. His name was John Potts.’

    Potts’ rejuvenated appearance was probably the result of new flesh and scar tissue covering the burns he had received in this closest of shaves.

    The uniform of the 1st Foot in 1815.

    The 1st Foot also took part in the Waterloo campaign in 1815 as part of General Picton’s division, a Private John Potts served in Captain Robert Dudgeon’s N° 8 Company, being awarded the Waterloo Medal for his service in the brief but dramatic campaign. There is evidence that the other John Potts in the ranks of the 1st Foot may have been stricken ill with eye problems on the march from Ghent to Brussels, which may perhaps have put him out of action for the duration, but again as with the Peninsula War clasps there is no clear indication as to which John Potts it was who saw action at Waterloo.

    Potts was in France with the army following Napoleon’s final overthrow and it was whilst stationed at Valenciennes that on 16 May 1816, he was discharged from the army due to being worn out by the effects of his numerous wounds. He was described at the time as being about 32 (sic) years of age, 5 feet 11 inches tall, with brown hair, grey eyes and a fresh complexion. Another document added the detail that he had a long visage. Having made his way back to Britain, on 9 August 1816 Potts was duly examined at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea to secure a soldiers’ pension. This he did, being awarded a shilling a day as an out-patient.

    John Potts disappears from the records after this, though we can presume from John Douglas’s account that he returned to the Potteries following his medical exam. There is some circumstantial evidence that he may have been the John Potts listed in the 1841 census as living in Joiners Square, Hanley. This man was was 52 years old (born in 1789 as the soldier seems to have been) and he worked as a pottery painter (one of Pott’s suggested pre-army trades). He was married, his wife Elizabeth being 45 years old, though they had no children. A decade later, though, the fuller census of 1851 revealed that the couple had suffered a serious downturn in their fortunes. John had gone blind and he and Elizabeth were listed as beggars lodging with a family in Bow Street, Northwood. By the time of the 1861 census, John Potts was 72 years old, his wife was 64 and they now had their own house at 34 Bow Street, where they lived with John’s niece. The census noted that John had been blind for 14 years. This, though, was the last census he would appear on and a John Potts was listed as having died in Stoke-on-Trent in the last quarter of 1862.

    Was this man really our old soldier fading away? We will probably never know for sure, but if so, the tale of his later years makes for a sad counterpoint to the high dramas of his youth.

    Reference: The National Archives, WO 97- Royal Hospital Chelsea: Soldiers’ Service Documents, piece 235, box 4; John Douglas, Douglas’s Tale of the Peninsula & Waterloo 1808-1815, pp. 79-80. Information courtesy of Ken Ray.

  • The Battle of Burslem

    The 2nd Dragoon Guards open fire on the crowd in front of the Big House, Burslem.
    An AI recreation of the scene after a drawing by the author.

    In 1842, a prolonged miner’s strike had crippled the Staffordshire Potteries. Hundreds of men were on the streets begging and intimidating passers by, while surly mobs raided police stations to free those who had been arrested. The situation in the Potteries was likened to that of a powder keg ready to explode and all that was needed was a spark to kindle all into combustion. Enter Thomas Cooper lay preacher and Chartist firebrand, whose powerful speeches finally struck that spark and plunged the Potteries into two days of rioting and mob rule. During this period dozens of buildings were looted and destroyed and order was only restored after a clash between rioters and the army, an incident popularly known as the Battle of Burslem.

    Thomas Cooper

    The confrontation took place on 16th August 1842. After a day and night of rioting and looting, early in the morning of the 16th crowds began to gather once more on streets of the Potteries. Of the five towns which had suffered in the previous day’s rioting, Hanley had been hit the worst. Plumes of heavy fire smoke curled up from either end of the town and the streets were filled with debris. The parsonage was a smouldering ruin and at the top of Pall Mall, Albion House home of local magistrate William Parker had been reduced to a charred and broken shell. On the streets of the town by 7 o’clock a crowd of 400 to 500 people had gathered and were being addressed by two of the local Chartist leaders, young William Ellis and John Richards, the elder statesman of Potteries Chartism. Ellis was urging the crowd not to give up the struggle until the People’s Charter became the law of the land. According to witnesses, though, it was the normally mild-mannered Richards who was more to the point. “Now my lads,” he said, “we have got the parson’s house down, we must have the churches down, for if we lose this day, we lose the day forever.” Ellis then spoke again and urged the crowd to go to Burslem to join the crowd there. They were expecting to meet up with a large crowd who were coming to the Potteries from Leek and extend the rioting even further. By 9 o’clock, with shouts of “Now lads for Burslem” and “Now to business”, the Hanley mob began marching north.

    From Hanley to Burslem is a steady half hour walk for a healthy man and as they entered the town at about 9.30am, the crowd were singing a song that Thomas Cooper had taught them, “… the lion of freedom’s let loose from his den, and we’ll rally round him again and again.” On their arrival in the town a part of the mob barged into George Inn which had only ten days earlier been attacked by outraged strikers and suffered substantial damage. To try and avoid further trouble, the owner of the Inn, Mr Barlow tried to buy the rioters off by giving them a shilling each; some of this was in half crowns and a dispute arose at the door as to the division of it. By this time the greater part of the mob had arrived and they immediately rushed in and filled the house. Mr Barlow had taken the precaution to remove the bulk of his cash; there was however £14 in coppers wrapped up in parcels of five shillings, which were all taken. Numerous bottles of wine, whisky and rum was also stolen, and the taps attached to the beer kegs were left running. Prominent amongst those who conducted this raid was George ‘Cogsey Nelly’ Colclough, a local lout who had flitted from one town to another the previous day, joining in with the burning and looting wherever he went. Like a moth to the flame he had followed the trouble back to his native Hanley and now thought to export his brand of local thuggery to the Mother Town. But the invasion of the inn did not go unopposed, for while the mob had previously only faced outnumbered police constables, they now found that they were in a town containing a small but formidable force of regular soldiers. They were surprised by a sergeant of dragoons and one or two other soldiers who were billeted at the inn, who hearing the noise, rushed into the bar and lobby to confront the troublemakers. Being in their undress uniforms they only had their swords to hand, but undaunted, the sergeant immediately drew his sword and began to cutting and swatting at the looters and in a few minutes the house was cleared. On being forced back into the street, the mob vented their anger by throwing stones at the windows, and in a very short time all the newly fitted glass was smashed and the house soon presented the same dilapidated appearance as it did after the attack in the night of the 6th.

    At the Leopard Inn, meantime, local magistrate Captain Thomas Powys was with Brevet-Major Power Le Poer Trench the commander of the 50 or so 2nd Dragoon Guards, who had been stationed in Burslem the week before. The two men had met shortly after the news had come in of a large crowd coming from Leek and Powys was doubtless consulting with the military as to what should be done if they tried to join the rioters. It was at this point that Thomas Lees the landlord of the inn came over with news that trouble that had broken out in Chapel Square. Captain Powys immediately asked for the Major’s assistance and Trench quickly ordered his available men to horse. Most of the men were billeted at the inn, their horses being stabled outside and the troopers now came out into the cobbled courtyard and hurriedly got themselves and their animals ready for action. A flurry of stones came flying over the gate striking at least one soldier on the helmet, but unfazed they were soon clattering out of the courtyard and through the streets. Mounted on their big bay horses, the soldiers dressed in scarlet tunics, dark blue trousers with a yellow stripe down the side and tall, crested brass helmets on their heads, they were a sight to see and doubtless provided the townsfolk with a gallant if alarming show as they rode towards the Market Place.

    The Leopard Inn, Burslem.

    The mood in the town had grown increasingly ugly with the arrival of the soldiers and Captain Powys knew that the crowd of people from Leek were even now on the outskirts of the town. If the two mobs joined up and went unopposed Burslem might well be utterly wrecked, so Powys decided that it was now time to restore law and order before things got completely out of hand.

    Riding up to the top of St John’s Square with Trench’s dragoons posted on either side and 200 special constables behind them, Captain Powys faced the mob and began to read out the Riot Act in a loud voice. He then gave several other warnings and then read the Riot Act again, urging the crowd to disperse and go home peacefully. The crowd, however, were unmoved and milled about between the market or the Shambles, as it was called, and the Big House, Thomas Wedgwood’s former home that still stands at the junction of Moorland Road and Waterloo Road, though at that time there was a walled garden before it. Powys then called out, “Clear the streets!” Then shouted, “Charge!” and led the dragoons towards the crowd. He had hoped to scare them off and the horse soldiers beat with the flats of their swords any who were slow in getting out of their way. The ruse did not work, though, for as one portion of the crowd fell back others spilled out of the side streets and alleys, back into the main crowd. Seeing the opportunity to cause more trouble, George Colclough set about the nearest soldiers with his stick, beating at their sword arms as they attempted to swat him. After a time several of the cavalrymen were so bruised by Colclough’s attacks that they left him alone, which is said to have raised a cheer from some in the crowd.

    By now it was getting towards noon and despite the best efforts of Captain Powys and the soldiers, the streets were still full of people. Some had climbed onto the roof of the Town Hall and the covered market, from where they threw stones at the troops and special constables. Powys, increasingly alarmed that the situation might escalate to the point where he might have to use the soldiers more forcefully, was repeatedly seen riding up to the crowds and calling out that the Riot Act had been read and urging people to return to their homes. He was joined in his efforts by others including an Irish naval officer, 41 year old Captain William Bunbury McClintock, who had come to town to meet his friend Major Trench, only to find himself in the eye of a storm. McClintock now rode back and forth from where the bulk of the troops were gathered by the Leopard Inn to check on what the crowds were doing. He saw ‘a vast concourse of people in the Hanley Road, and a dense mob on the Smallthorne Road – the latter were accompanied by a band of music. I returned again to the troop, and told Captain Powys there would soon be bloody work.’

    Word quickly spread, to the delight of the rioters in the town that the Leek mob of between 4,000 to 5,000 people was advancing down Smallthorne Road and they began moving up Chapel Square to meet them. As McClintock had noted, at the head of the crowd marched a band playing ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’ preceded by a large number of men and boys shouting and waving makeshift weapons overhead, all of which could be clearly seen from Market Square. Captain Powys described it as ‘the most tumultuous and violent mob which I have ever seen assembled, having seen many riots in the country and in London.’ He guessed that a clash was now inevitable and barely three minutes after McClintock had ridden back to the troop, Powys ordered Major Trench to move the troop forward to meet the crowd and he formed his dragoons up in sections diagonally across the road from the Big House to the Post office, so cutting the newcomers off from the bulk of the Potteries’ mob in the Market Square. The special constables, meantime, closed up nervously behind the cavalry, among them local manufacturer Joseph Edge and his friend Samuel Cork. They looked so alarmed at this point that a kindly lady watching the action from a nearby house sent her servant over with a glass of wine for them both, hoping that the drinks would revive their spirits.

    An officer of the 2nd Dragoon Guards. The black crest was only worn on parade or for ceremonies

    They needed it, for by now the fresh crowd was closing on the thin line of soldiers. Captain Powys on horseback was on the left of Major Trench, who with the other officers were in advance of the dragoons. A large crowd was assembled in the area above the Wesleyan chapel, to witness the arrival of the Leek mob. When about eighty or a hundred yards from the spot where the dragoons were stationed, the Leek party began to cheer and those in front waved their bludgeons. As the head of the procession entered the open space, the front ranks turned to the left, with the apparent intention of making their way by the Wesleyan chapel. About twenty or thirty deep of them had got so far when as Captain Powys later recalled, ‘Immediately large volleys of stones, and brick ends were thrown by this mob at myself, and also at the military, I being then in the advance. Similar stones were thrown at the same time by the mob coming in the direction from Hanley at the military, myself and also at the special constables.’

    By now the situation was intolerable. Stones were being hurled from both sides of the Market Square, striking horses and men alike and rattling over the cobbles. Captain Powys had thus far been the model of restraint, giving the crowd ample opportunities for a peaceful withdrawal, but it was now obvious that they were bent on trouble. Fearing for the safety of the soldiers, special constables and himself, by his own account he felt he had no choice but to use the soldiers to full effect and turning to Major Trench, Powys asked him to get his men ready to open fire. Trench agreed that the situation was getting out of control and gave the appropriate orders. As the soldiers sheathed their swords and primed their carbines, the large crowd moved forward as far as the Big House. The dragoons advanced slightly to counter them and only at the last moment when the front of the crowd was only six or seven yards away from the soldiers did it seem that the rioters saw the line of guns being raised and levelled at them. ‘This movement on the part of the soldiers caused a strange movement amongst those in the front of the mob, and a look of terror came over their faces. Another moment and the order “fire” was given’ and the rattle of musketry echoed out loud over the town.’

    The soldiers fired directly into the crowd, not over their heads as some reported, and many bullets found a mark. Standing in front of the large brick wall that then stood in front of the Big House, was a 19 year old shoemaker from Leek named Josiah Heapy. Despite glowing reports from his employer, who later extolled his gentle character and claimed he had been forced to join the crowd, Heapy appears to have been actively engaged in throwing stones at the soldiers, at least, that is, until a musket ball struck him in the temple and blew his brains out against the gate post.

    As Heapy’s lifeless form slumped to the pavement, in another section of the crowd, a bricklayer named William Garrett got a ball through his back that exited through his neck and he too fell to the ground gravely wounded but he was eventually whisked off to the infirmary. According to reports others were hit, but in the confusion no one stopped to count the casualties, though it has been supposed that some of the wounded were carried off by their friends and died later. A report in the Bolton Chronicle later claimed that the true tally had been three people killed and six wounded, while reports from Leek spoke of numerous wounded being brought back into the town after the riots.

    The Big House in Burslem, where the fateful clash occurred

    Some in the crowd seem to have been expecting this development, for shortly after the soldiers had fired their volley someone released a number of carrier pigeons which set off in the direction of Manchester. One of these birds was later captured and found to be carrying a note reporting that the mob had been fired on by dragoons and calling for 50,000 workers to join them in the Potteries. Some witnesses also recalled seeing plumes of gun smoke coming from the crowd just before the soldiers fired, though if this was the case, none of the soldiers or special constables were injured.

    Most of the mob, though, was just shocked by the gunfire. From his position behind the dragoons, special constable Joseph Edge had watched all this in fascinated horror, as his son later noted: ‘such a scene presented itself which we may pray may never be repeated in this good old town. So panic stricken was the mob that the men simply lay down in heaps in their efforts to get away from the cavalry… ‘

    Having stunned the rioters, the soldiers kept moving forwards and slinging their carbines, they drew their swords and followed by the special constables they charged their horses into the head of the crowd which scattered in panic before them. Immediately, thousands of people began rushing in all directions, many falling over each other in tangled heaps, others leaping through open windows, or into any available hiding place. Apocryphal tales abound. One Joseph Pickford of Leek is said to have taken shelter in a pig sty, much to the annoyance of its porcine occupants, whose squeals threatened to reveal his hiding place. Hundreds more escaped into the adjoining fields. Another story recalled how Thomas Goldstraw, a powerfully built man from Leek and a noted drummer, dropped his drum when the soldiers charged and quickly fled from Burslem back the way he had come, unaware at first that his son who had been nearby at the time had been shot through the thigh and was lying wounded in a field just outside the town. According to the storyteller, Goldstraw junior was later placed on a cart and transported to the surgery of an obliging physician, Dr Wright at Norton-in-the-Moors, who soon had him back on his feet again.

    As the military swept past into the Moorland Road, a portion of the mob from the direction of Hanley, rallied and began throwing stones at the body of special constables, who advanced to the conflict in a dense mass, playing away with their truncheons, and completely routed the mob in that quarter. After the soldiers had charged a short distance up the Smallthorne Road, they were halted and recalled: their job was done as the mob, which just before had consisted of five or six thousand people was completely dispersed and the danger to Burslem had passed.

    Reference: Staffordshire Mercury, 20 August 1842; Staffordshire Advertiser, 20 August 1842, p.3;  John Wilcox Edge ‘Burslem fifty years ago’, quoted in Carmel Dennison’s Burslem:People and Buildings, Buildings and People, (Stoke-on-Trent, 1996), pp. 36-37; Leek: Fifty Years Ago, (Leek, 1887), p.107 and 121.

  • Lost with the Lusitania

    The sinking of the Lusitania, by marine artist Norman Wilkinson.
    Source: Wikimedia Commons.

    On 7 May 1915, the Cunard liner Lusitania, en route from New York to Liverpool was some 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, when a lurking German U-Boat fired a torpedo that struck the ship just aft of the bridge on the starboard side. Shortly after the torpedo struck, a second explosion occurred inside the ship, dooming the vessel, which sank in only 18 minutes. There were only 763 survivors out of the 1,960 passengers and crew and about 128 of the dead were American citizens. The sinking of the Lusitania was widely condemned around the world and it became a contributing factor to America’s entry into the Great War in 1917. 

    As had been the case with the Titanic three years earlier, there were several people aboard the doomed liner who hailed from the Potteries, though some of them had become naturalised American or Canadian citizens, who despite the increasing dangers posed by the war in Europe, were coming to Britain to visit relatives. Most of them perished in the disaster, but three survived and had dramatic but tragic tales to tell.

    When the Lusitania was first struck by the torpedo, 39 year old Martha Barker, her nine year old daughter Winifred, with their friends Elizabeth Brammer aged 32 and her five year old daughter Edith, were sitting down to lunch in the second class saloon. They had all been born in the Potteries, Martha in Stoke, her daughter in Hanley, Elizabeth in Longton and her daughter in Stoke. However, they were now US citizens, their two families having emigrated to the States in 1909, setting up home in Trenton, New Jersey, where their husbands and fathers had found work in the local pottery industry. But the ties that bind were strong and in 1915, the four of them decided to take a trip back to Britain, Mrs Barker to visit her mother who was ill and the Brammers to see relatives. They were all aware of the dangers they faced in taking the trip; indeed the Germans had recently placed warning notices in many American papers – one was even placed next to the notice announcing Lusitania’s sailing – stating that all British ships were now subject to unrestricted submarine warfare and would be legitimate targets to attack. But the journey thus far had been uneventful and the women and girls were looking forward to arriving safely at Liverpool.

    That happy prospect, though, was suddenly cut short, when at about 2.10 p.m., the torpedo slammed into the Lusitania. Mrs Barker recalled that the ship seemed to stop, almost dead, shuddered and began to list to starboard. Everyone knew what had happened and there followed a scramble to get out of the saloon, but in the confusion and crush to get up on to the deck, the Barkers and Brammers were separated from one another.

    Mrs Brammer and Edith, got to the main deck where a fellow passenger, a clergyman from Queenstown, put life jackets on the two of them. Martha Barker had lost track of what was going on, but she and Winifred also made it to the boat deck, where a gentleman provided the young girl with a life jacket, though Martha never managed to get one. They both climbed into a nearby lifeboat, but on the captain’s orders they and other passengers were told to get out, which was fortunate as the boat was situated on the side that went down first. The occupants were told that everything was fine, the watertight doors were closed and that after the shock of the blast, the ship was slowly righting itself.

    The ship was indeed settling back onto an even keel when the second explosion occurred deep within the hull, dooming the vessel. Martha Barker held Winifred’s right hand and with nothing else to do, they simply waited for the end. Despite the peril, the little girl showed great courage and said, “Don’t worry mother darling; we shall be saved.”

    But as the ship rolled over, with hundreds of others they were plunged into the water and the suction quickly pulled them under. Mrs Barker remembered being pulled down and down before she lost consciousness. When she awoke some time later, she found herself on an upturned boat onto which she had been lifted by someone, but she was horrified to find that Winifred was no longer with her.

    The Brammers too had gone down with the ship, but they must have held on tight to each other. Elizabeth Brammer also lost consciousness, but when she came to she found herself safe in a lifeboat with Edith by her side. Martha Barker, meantime, was picked up by one of the collapsible lifeboats, then a fishing boat came along and took her and others on board. Some time later, she was moved once again, this time to a steam tug which transported her to Queenstown harbour, where it seems she was reunited with the Brammers.

    The survivors were taken to the Queen’s Hotel in Queenstown, arriving there at about 10 p.m., some seven or eight hours after the sinking. Here, the US Consul based in Cork, came to render assistance and Martha Barker and the Brammers, were overwhelmed by the kindness of the locals, who helped in every way they could. For Martha, though, it was a heart-wrenching time, and though she waited for several days, hoping against hope to hear something about her daughter, no news ever came. Brave little Winnie Barker, was never seen again, just one of the 1,197 people lost with the Lusitania.

    It soon became clear in the North Staffordshire press, that others from the Potteries had perished alongside her. Arthur John Wood, aged 39, had been born in Wolstanton, but grew up in Burslem and Tunstall. By 1915, he was a married man living in Goldenhill and he worked as a designer and representative of Messrs W. H. Grindley and Co., of Tunstall. He had been in the States on a business trip for his firm and having crossed safely on the Lusitania, he took the ship for the return, but was lost in the sinking. His body was later recovered and like many of the victims he was later buried in Queenstown.

    William Henry Crutchley, aged 48, had been born in Hanley and worked in the pottery industry as a sanitary presser and caster. A married man with six surviving children, he had been in the States visiting his son who worked as a potter in East Liverpool, Ohio. William was travelling as a steerage (3rd class) passenger on the Lusitania, returning to Britain to see his wife and daughters. William was reportedly a good swimmer and his son in the States at first held out some hope that his father had survived the sinking, but William was never seen again.

    Also born in Hanley was Edward Jones, sometimes referred to as Edward Carr-Jones. Aged 39, he was a pianist aboard the Lusitania. After a period working in the pottery industry, by 1911, he was listing himself in the census as a ‘professor of music’ and ‘Pianist Cunard Line.’ He had, in fact, been leading a very different life from most of the locals for several years and before going to sea he had spent several summers working in Barmouth as a member of a pierrot troupe, ‘The Royal Magnets’, wherein he played the flute. From 1912 onwards, he was working regularly on ships. Now styling himself Edward Carr-Jones (Carr was his mother’s maiden name) he had worked on the Carmania and Lusitania as a pianist. He too was lost in the sinking.

    Also mentioned alongside these was Gertrude Walker, a Canadian citizen who had been born in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Aged 28 at the time of her death. She was the wife of John Walker, a native of Warwickshire, who had trained in the Potteries as a blacksmith and who later worked as a mechanical engineer for the Cobridge Sanitary Brick and Tile Works. The couple married in Newcastle in 1913 and emigrated to Canada soon after, settling in Toronto, where John found work as a fitter on the railways. In 1915, Gertrude got news that her father was ill, which prompted their journey back to Britain. Friends had tried to dissuade them from going, but to no avail, and both perished in the disaster that overtook the liner.

    For the survivors, life went on, though not always in the happiest of ways. Martha Barker suffered the tragedy of losing her daughter alone at first, though she was soon joined in Liverpool by her husband Thomas and daughter Doris, and Elizabeth Brammer’s husband also came over. In July, they all returned safely to the United States aboard the American Line steamer New York. Not long after this, Thomas Barker died and Martha went on to marry one Michael Thomas Gretton. By 1940, she was a widow once more and eventually died in 1963, in Trenton, being listed as Martha Barker.

    Her friend Elizabeth Brammer is something of an enigma after the sinking and her return home. It has been claimed that she died in 1983, but this has been disputed. Her daughter Edith, though, is easier to trace. She married one Arthur Fletcher in 1929, and the couple had a daughter. Edith Fletcher, born in Stoke-upon-Trent in 1907, died in Mercer County, New Jersey, in April 1985, aged 78.

    Reference: Staffordshire Sentinel, 8 – 10 May 1915; Staffordshire Advertiser 15 May 1915, p.7. Peter Engberg-Klarström’s website ‘Peter’s Lusitania Page’ https://lusitaniapage.wordpress.com/ is an excellent online resource for those looking for more in-depth biographies of the passengers and crew of the Lusitania. I gratefully acknowledge his research here, notably into the life of bandsman Edward Jones. My thanks also to Ken Ray, for drawing my attention to the story

  • With Wellington at Waterloo

    French cuirassiers charge a British square at Waterloo, painting by Felix Philippoteaux.
    Source: Wikimedia Commons

    After three days of fighting and manoeuvring between the opposing sides, on 18 June 1815, the Battle of Waterloo ended once and for all the military career of Napoleon Bonaparte. In celebration, it became the first ever action commemorated in Britain with a campaign medal that was awarded to soldiers of all ranks who survived the fighting, and there are records for over 40 men from the Potteries who later received the Waterloo Medal.

    The campaign opened at dawn on 15 June, when Napoleon struck into what is today Belgium crossing the river Sambre at Charleroi with 126,000 men, and securing a pivotal ‘central position’ between Wellington’s Anglo‑Dutch‑Belgian army and Blücher’s Prussians. His plan was to defeat each army separately before they could unite against him. On 16 June, he struck the Prussians at Ligny, while Marshal Ney fought Wellington’s forces at Quatre Bras. Quatre Bras was a scrappy battle with Wellington’s forces arriving on scene in a piecemeal fashion, but they held their ground. Sergeant Sampson Midlam of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Foot, from Stoke, was wounded in the hand and evacuated to Brussels, the first local casualty of the campaign.

    On the 17th, the Prussians, though battered, withdrew from Ligny in good order, marching north towards Wavre. Hearing of this and to keep in contact with them, Wellington then fell back in parallel with the Prussians, northward towards Brussels, to a position he had scouted the year before. Meantime, Napoleon sent a third of his forces under the command of Marshal Grouchy to pursue the Prussians while he shifted his main weight towards Wellington. Indeed, at one point Napoleon, riding at the head of his cavalry, led the pursuit of the Allied rear-guard as they fell back, but soon, all pursuit and fighting ground to a halt as a terrific storm broke overhead, quickly drenching both armies. They moved into position on either side of a wide shallow valley, Wellington’s men settled on the northern ridge just south of the village of Mont St Jean, while the French took the opposite heights. Here they spent a wretched night under the rain, while the Duke made his headquarters two miles further up the road at the village of Waterloo.

    After dawn on that fateful Sunday 18 June, the rain eased, and the two armies faced each other across the valley. The sodden ground delayed the battle until late morning, when Napoleon opened the action with a bombardment and a diversionary attack on the fortified farmstead of Hougoumont in front of the Allied right of line. Intended to draw troops from Wellington’s centre, the fight instead became a prolonged and savage struggle that pulled in increasing numbers of French troops without success.

    Present day Hougoumont
    Author’s collection.

    Many Potteries men fought at Hougoumont. In the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, Private John Harrison of Burslem, was severely wounded in the neck and left arm. Private Ralph Cartledge (or Cartlidge), also of Burslem, was wounded in the mouth. Sergeant John Simpson of Burslem was shot through the thigh early in the action, and Private John Johnson of Tunstall, previously wounded at Bergen‑op‑Zoom, suffered a serious groin wound. Two others from Burslem, Privates Thomas Grocott and William Waller, escaped without injury.

    The 2nd Battalion, 3rd Foot Guards also sent many men into the fight. Private John Copeland of Burslem, formerly of the Stafford Militia, fought first in the lane to the west of the chateau complex and then in the wood, before being driven back into the château; he was badly wounded and later lost his left leg. Two older Burslem soldiers, 40 year old Private William Collier and Private John Oulcott, aged 33, were not wounded.

    While the struggle for Hougoumont continued unabated, elsewhere other locals were feeling the brunt of Napoleon’s first grand attack. In the early afternoon following a fierce bombardment, a force of some 16,000 French infantrymen in three giant columns, was sent marching across the valley against the Allied left of centre. With drums beating and flags flying, their progress seemed unstoppable and when they crashed up against the forces on the ridge and opened fire it looked for a time as if the thin Allied line might give way under the pressure. Luckily, Wellington’s second-in-command the Earl of Uxbridge, was on the spot and countered by launching his two brigades of heavy cavalry in a great charge, which shattered the French attack and sent it reeling back across the fields in panic. However, many of the horsemen got out of control, and crossing the valley attacked the French guns, only to be themselves attacked by French lancers who took a heavy toll. Despite these losses, the charge had done its job and shattered Napoleon’s first gambit.

    In the 2nd Life Guards were Private George Ball of Burslem, a veteran of Vittoria and Toulouse; Private James Bott, likely from Longton; Private William Henshall, a Burslem potter; and Private Joseph Walker of Stoke, a 6’2” former miller. Their regiment charged to the east of the farm of La Haye Sainte in front of the Allied centre, smashing through a force of cuirassiers, (armoured French cavalry) and then into the French infantry. Nearby in the ranks of the Royal Horse Guards, Private Philip Yates, probably from Hanley Green and also a veteran of Vittoria and Toulouse, was also involved in with the charge. His regiment, acting as reserve, joined the charge but withdrew in good order and suffered fewer casualties as a result.

    As the armies paused and reorganised after these dramatic events, movement to the east revealed the arrival of Blücher’s Prussians, who had outpaced Grouchy. Napoleon ordered Ney to seize La Haye Sainte, but whilst so engaged, Ney became convinced that Wellington was retreating. He had perhaps mistaken Allied troops being moved to the rear of the ridge for shelter as the beginnings of a withdrawal, and was determined to turn this into a rout. Ney, therefore, abandoned the attack on La Haye Sainte and rode around gathering every cavalryman he could find and with an initial force of 5,000 horsemen, that would grow with each attack, he launched the first of several massive charges against the Allied ridge. Wellington, however, was not retreating, and the order now went ringing along the Allied line to prepare to receive cavalry.

    The French cavalry first had to endure long‑range fire from the Allied guns spaced along the ridge. The Potteries were strongly represented in the British artillery at Waterloo. Gunner and Driver Samuel Day of Burslem, though belonging to a Royal Artillery company not present at the battle, had been seconded to Rogers’ R.A. battery to help supply small‑arms ammunition. He fought with the battery at both Quatre Bras and Waterloo, positioned in the latter action on the centre‑left near the Brussels road before moving further to the west in the afternoon. Then there was Gunner and Driver Joseph Lightfoot, from Stoke parish, serving in Sandham’s Company, which was placed roughly in the centre of the Allied artillery line on the right of the battlefield and it remained there for most of the day, enduring attack after attack.

    Several local men of the Royal Artillery Drivers—non‑combatants responsible for moving guns, limbers, ammunition and spares—also received the Waterloo Medal. Although only four R.A. companies served at Waterloo (employing no more than 300 drivers), over 1,000 R.A.D. men were awarded the medal, making it unlikely that most were present. Even so, Driver Thomas Bolton of A Troop from Burslem; Driver Daniel (or David) Goostree of A Troop from Stoke; Driver William Ellis of D Troop probably from Hanley; and the likely brothers Joseph and Thomas Kirby of F Troop, both from Stoke, may have taken part.

    Others served in the Royal Horse Artillery. Gunner Theophilus Harrison of F Troop, possibly from Burslem and Gunner Aaron Wedgwood of H Troop definitely from Burslem, were heavily engaged throughout the day, firing on repeated French attacks. Gunners George Barlow and Thomas Millar both from Stoke parish and Samuel Weaver of Trentham, served in G Troop, R.H.A., which saw some of the fiercest action. Their commander, Captain Mercer, refused to withdraw his men into the infantry squares during the cavalry charges, instead keeping his guns in action and blasting the French horsemen as they charged his position.

    A Royal Horse Artillery Troop under attack.

    When the cavalry finally crested the ridge, they found Wellington’s infantry not retreating but formed on the reverse slope into tight squares or oblongs, bristling with bayonets and backed by ranks of muskets that poured heavy fire into the attackers as they appeared. Among the men inside these squares were Private William Hilditch of the 3/1st Foot Guards, a former bricklayer from Stoke, who at some point was wounded in the thigh; Corporal William Walbank of Stoke and Private Joseph Bourne of Burslem, both of the 33rd Foot; Private Aaron Lockett of the 3/69th Foot from Stoke; Colour Sergeant Thomas Scarratt, who was wounded in the right arm, and Private Thomas Wilkinson were both of the 73rd Foot and both from Stoke parish; while further east, near to the Brussels road, a badly burnt and scarred Peninsular veteran, Private John Potts of Hanley, was hunkered down with the 3/1st Foot.

    Behind the squares, Allied light cavalry waited ready to strike the French horsemen as they emerged exhausted from their attacks. The 15th Light Dragoons repeatedly charged cuirassiers, dragoons, lancers and gendarmes as they spilled out from between the infantry. Three locals rode with them: Private John Challiner possibly from Hanley, was a Peninsular veteran wounded at Vittoria; Private William Machin from Hanley; and Private John Simpson from Stoke. None appear to have been injured at Waterloo.

    Napoleon, distracted by the growing Prussian threat on his right, failed to halt Ney’s increasingly futile cavalry assaults. By the time the charges ended a couple of hours later, the Prussians were fighting for the village of Plancenoit, threatening the French flank and Napoleon committed elements of the Imperial Guard to hold them off. Returning his attention to Wellington, he ordered Ney to seize La Haye Sainte, still convinced it was the key to breaking the Allied centre. With around a thousand men, Ney attacked and captured the farm, helped by the defenders’ running out of ammunition. A mass of French skirmishers then pushed up the slope toward the Allied line and opened a galling fire on the troops there. Opposite them stood the 1st Battalion, 4th Foot, which had spent most of the day in reserve near Mont‑St‑Jean. Now on the front line, they suffered heavily from this fire. One of them, Private William Tunnicliff of Burslem, a veteran of both the Peninsular and North American campaigns, was shot in the left arm. Many others also fell in the desperate struggle and seeing the damage Wellington’s line was taking, Ney called for reinforcements to attack the battered Allied centre. However, the Emperor, his mind still focused on the Prussian threat, refused to send any more troops. Wellington, meantime, used his enemy’s delay to bolster his line, piling in reinforcements, and gradually the best chance of a French victory faded away.

    It was now nearly 7pm, and after stabilising the fight against the Prussians, Napoleon knew that to break Wellington’s forces before night fell he would have to gamble all on one final attack. To boost morale, Napoleon spread the false rumour that the troops they could now see to the east, were Marshal Grouchy’s men coming to join them. Buoyed up, the French army launched a general attack all along the line, but the main punch would come from the Imperial Guard, Napoleon’s toughest troops, who had never failed in an attack. Ordering forward eight battalions of the Middle and Old Guard, Napoleon personally led them to within 600 yards of the Allied ridge between La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont, before handing command to Ney for the attack. Despite facing intense artillery fire, the Guard advanced steadily in four columns towards the Allied ridge.

    At the ridge, a fierce firefight erupted. Some Allied units wavered under the onslaught, but were steadied by supporting cannon fire. The westernmost French column met the 1st Foot Guards head‑on and if he had not already been wounded, Private William Hilditch mentioned earlier, would doubtless have been among those now exchanging volleys with the Guard and receiving his injury in return. The 52nd Foot then wheeled onto the French flank, pouring volley after volley into the column and though the Imperial Guardsmen fought stubbornly for a time, the sustained fire eventually broke their formation. As the 52nd advanced, the entire Allied brigade on the ridge surged forward in a bayonet charge, driving the Imperial Guard back down the slope.

    The final battle with the Imperial Guard

    The sight of the Guard retreating, combined with the realisation that the troops to the east were Prussians, not Grouchy come to save them, shattered French morale. Cries of “The Guard retreats!” and “We are betrayed!” rippled through the ranks. Units that had fought bravely all day, now began to break and fall back, and the panic spread rapidly. Wellington, watching from the ridge, seized the moment. Riding to a high point, he took off his hat and waved it towards the enemy, signalling a general advance. Cheers erupted along the Allied line, as thousands of infantry formed line to advance and cavalry swept down from the bloody ridge, driving the collapsing French army from the field. Two light cavalry regiments kept in reserve for most of the day—the 11th and 16th Light Dragoons—now rode over the ridge near to where the Imperial Guard had attacked and hurled themselves into the fight, eager to repay the French cannon fire that had swept over them for hours. The 11th charged a French battery, receiving its final shots before driving the gunners off, while the 16th pursued fleeing infantry. Serving with the 11th were Privates Joseph Hill, Joseph Hulme, James Jones and Samuel Tamms, all from Stoke parish; Private George Goodwin of Bucknall or Hanley, rode with the 16th. All five men came through the battle uninjured.

    When the French were finally pushed from the field and in full retreat, Wellington’s exhausted army halted as darkness fell, the men bivouacking where they could amongst the thousands of dead and wounded, the pursuit being left to the vengeful Prussians, who drove the French back over the border. The next day, the British followed along behind Blücher’s army, skirmishing briefly with French border guards but taking no further significant casualties. Within days of his defeat, Napoleon had abdicated for the second time and surrendered to the Royal Navy, which soon after carried him into permanent exile on St Helena. With that, the long wars were finally over for good.

    The British troops who had fought at Waterloo, soon marched into Paris as part of the army of occupation, and many of the Potteries men named above would spend the next few years there. These, of course, are the men we know of, the survivors whose records remain. For there may have been others who were not so lucky. Any soldiers from the district who were killed at Quatre Bras or Waterloo are anonymous now; the records of those who had been killed were usually destroyed as a matter of course when their names were removed from the regimental rolls. Their families would not even have the posthumous glory of a medal to their name and memory, as only living men could receive the Waterloo Medal.

    Reference: The National Archives: WO 22 – Royal Hospital Chelsea: Returns of Payment of Army and Other Pensions; WO 23 – Out Pensioners: Ordnance; WO 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records 1760-1913; WO 100 – Cavalry, Wagon Train, Artillery and Foot Guards (Waterloo Medal list) – various entries in all categories. I am greatly indebted to Ken Ray, Ken Baddeley and Gwylim Roberts for their exhaustive original research into the local soldiers who fought at Waterloo and in other conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries.

  • Into the Valley of Death

    In 1975, a small article appeared in the Evening Sentinel noting that at the battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War, 1358 Private George Turner* of the 11th Hussars, born in Burslem, had been mortally wounded during the Charge of the Light Brigade. According to his records, Turner was indeed from Burslem, and had worked locally as a crate maker until at the age of 18 he had enlisted in the 11th Hussars at Coventry on 24th September 1847. As the paper noted, he was probably the only man from the Potteries to have taken part in that famous but suicidal military action, when on 25th October 1854, a force of nearly 670 light cavalrymen were mistakenly launched in a frontal attack on an extended line of Russian cannon, infantry and cavalry at the end of a valley, that were further supported by other batteries on either side. The results of this colossal blunder were predictable, with some 110 British soldiers being killed and 160 wounded in the attack, a 40 percent casualty rate, while over 300 horses were killed. 

    Richard Caton Woodville’s famous painting of the Charge of the Light Brigade. Lord Cardigan on the far left of picture is dressed as the commander of the 11th Hussars.
    Source: Wikimedia Commons

    The 11th Hussars, resplendent in their black fur shakos, blue and gold braided jackets and crimson trousers, formed half of the second rank of the Light Brigade, though that did not spare them and they took a severe mauling from the Russian cannons as the Brigade closed on the enemy line. Private Turner was one of those struck down well before they got there, hit on the left arm by a cannonball, his injury being witnessed by Sergeant Major George Loy Smith of his company, who was riding nearby. Loy Smith later wrote ‘… before we had gone many hundred yards Private Turner’s arm was struck off close to the shoulder and Private Ward was struck full in the chest.’ Another Private named Young had received a similar injury to Turner and Loy Smith told him to turn his horse around and go back to their own lines, ‘… I had hardly done speaking to him, when Private Turner fell back, calling out to me for help. I told him too, to go back to the rear.’

    The rest of the brigade rode on down the valley and through the line of cannons where they briefly caused havoc in the rear of the Russian line before exhaustion, the decimation of their ranks and Russian reinforcements forced them to retreat. Turner meantime, must have ridden, or been carried back down the valley to the British lines, bandaged up and with others was then placed aboard a transport ship bound for the military hospital at Scutari in Turkey. However, he never made it, his wound was too severe; Private George Turner aged 25 years old died aboard ship on 28th October and was probably buried at sea. 

    There was no mention of the fate of Private Turner in the local papers at the time and it took 120 years for his story to finally make the pages of the Sentinel. It was related by Mr W. R. Baker of Endon, who added, ‘I ask your readers to spare a moment’s thought to his memory now when tradition has little meaning and patriotism is an outmoded word I make no apology for thinking that he should not be entirely forgotten.’ 

    There existed, though, another poignant addendum to Turner’s sad tale. Seven months after the battle of Balaclava, the Light Brigade had passed again over the same ground, now deserted of enemy troops and here the upper part of a sabre scabbard, all twisted and mangled, was picked up by Sergeant Major Loy Smith and it became part of his collection of memorabilia. When the collection was put on display in Sheffield in 1981, a card attached to the scabbard’s remains read, ‘This belonged to Private Turner, K.I.A.’

    *Despite my best efforts, I have yet to find a trace of a George Turner in the local civil records who fits the available data, raising the possibility that the name is an alias.

    Reference: Evening Sentinel, 25 October 1975, p.4; George Loy Smith, A Victorian RSM: From India to the Crimea, p. 132.

    My thanks to Mr Philip Boys for kindly providing me with background information on Private Turner contained in ‘Lives of the Light Brigade: The E. J. Boys Archive’. 

  • Cannons from the Crimea

    Standing outside of the Brampton Museum in Newcastle-under-Lyme is a large black-painted cannon, mounted on a cast-iron limber. This was one of thousands of similar pieces of war booty brought back from the Crimea, following the fall of the Russian citadel of Sevastopol in 1855. In that city the Allied armies had discovered a large ordnance depot filled with 4,000 damaged or obsolete guns and these along with many of the guns captured during the fighting were later used as ballast on the merchantmen and troopships when they were bringing the army home. The Crimean War (1854-1856), had been a horrendous and utterly pointless conflict and perhaps as part of a wider public relations exercise to calm the national anger at the lives lost and at just how badly the war had been run, these cannon were freely distributed to towns and cities around the country.

    Newcastle’s cannon, weighing 2.8 tons is a 36 pounder made in 1840, and was presented to the Borough in 1857 by its then MP Samuel Christy. It was originally situated in Stubbs Walks, opposite the Orme Girl’s School, Newcastle, where it stood until 1965, when it was moved to its current location. Such was the fate of most of these retired instruments of war and in the latter half of the nineteenth century it was no unusual thing to find a large, defunct piece of Russian artillery decorating a municipal park or fronting some grand civic building anywhere in Britain. Today, though, they are not so common; time and necessity have seen many of the others scattered or scrapped over the years and such seems to have been the case with a couple of cannons that came to the Potteries, no trace of which now seems to exist.

    Newcastle’s impressive Russia cannon in situ. The carriage was mass-produced at the Royal Armouries in Woolwich.

    In his autobiography Past Years, Potteries-born scientist Oliver Lodge, mentioned a close encounter with a Russian cannon in his youth. Lodge recalled that at a very young age his father took him from their home in Penkhull down the steep hill to Stoke where peace celebrations marking the end of the Crimean War were taking place. A captured Russian cannon had been placed in front of the Wheatsheaf Hotel and Mr Lodge told his son to wait by the cannon until he came back for him. Looking up at the monstrous artillery piece, young Oliver wondered what they were going to do with the gun, half fearing but half hoping that they were going to fire it. However, nothing so exciting happened, instead the local dignitaries made several speeches before they all set off for lunch. Oliver’s father went with them, minus his boy, and afterwards in the evening he went home having completely forgotten about Oliver. Only after returning home and being asked by his wife where their son was did he suddenly remember and went dashing off back down the bank to find the lad still obediently standing by the gun, utterly unconcerned at being left alone for several hours after everyone else had departed. 

    The Victoria History of Staffordshire notes that a Russian cannon was presented to the town by W. T. Copeland in 1857 and erected opposite the Wheatsheaf Hotel in 1858, as per Lodge’s memoirs. In 1858, the Illustrated London News carried an interesting illustration of what was called Stoke-upon-Trent’s ‘Russian trophy’, along with some background information.


    ‘RUSSIAN TROPHY AT STOKE-UPON-TRENT.’ 

    ‘We give a representation of the Russian Trophy as mounted and in closed at Stoke-upon-Trent a few weeks ago. The gun is placed on a stone platform, as shown in the Illustration, in which the Royal arms, in Minton’s tiles, is inserted. On the stone parapet an ornamental railing of a handsome pattern is placed, and at each angle of the square of the platform a pillar in cast iron rises, to carry the wrought-iron scrollwork, which was manufactured by Mr. Haslam, of Derby, and is an excellent specimen of the old art of ironworking, now so ex­tensively superseded by the process of casting. All the ironwork is coloured in imitation of Florentine bronze, and richly gilt in the more decorative parts of the design. The whole is surmounted by a large globe lamp, which forms the principal feature of the construction, as the erection, being placed at the junction of three streets, requires a prominent and well adapted mode of lighting. The trophy was in­augurated by Mr. Alderman Copeland, one of the members for the borough, who also defrayed the expenses connected with mounting the piece. The work was designed and carried out under Mr. Edgar, architect.’

    Longton also received a gun, but even less is known about that one. There is a brief note in the Staffordshire Sentinel in 1867 that reads: ‘The same committee reported a resolution, in accordance with a suggestion from the Council, to remove the Russian cannon from the front of the Town Hall to the space within the railings at the front of the Court House… The proceedings were approved, and the recommendation adopted.’ In his Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent, E. J. D. Warrilow includes a photograph of Longton Court House with the cannon situated behind the railings as described, but a second photo taken in 1950 shows that the gun had been removed. It was resited to Queen’s Park, Longton, where it stood in front of the clock tower. However, it has long since vanished and its current whereabouts are unknown.


    Stoke’s gun was also later moved, to a site in Hill Street by the old town hall in about 1874, but what finally happened to this and Longton’s cannon is unknown. The most likely scenario is that the valuable metal was sacrificed to the war effort early in World War Two, and ironically perhaps went on to become part of a more modern arsenal. 


    Contrast this sad end with that of the Newcastle gun which has achieved a certain status in the area. Between 1919 to 1942, during its time in Stubb’s Walks, the cannon was joined by a World War One training tank as a companion, but the tank was sent to be scrapped during World War Two. When the Crimean gun was shifted from its original site in 1965 some feared that it too was destined to be melted down and contractors arrived to find that some of the pupils from the Orme Girl’s School had hung a notice on the gun – ‘Hands off our cannon’. They need not have worried. Today, the cannon points out over the Brampton Park, providing a striking and novel photo opportunity to visitors to the town’s museum. 

    Reference: Oliver Lodge, Past Years: An Autobiography (Cambridge, 1931) pp. 22-23. E. J. D. Warrillow, A Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent, p.385, Illustrated London News, 12 June 1858, Staffordshire Sentinel, 6 July 1867, Victoria History of Staffordshire Vol. VIII., p.180.

    Website: Crimean Cannon International Database

  • Smith Child – Admiral of the Blue

    The deck of an 18th century warship.
    Illustration by W. H. Overend.

    Smith Child, later an admiral in the Royal Navy, who also dabbled locally in the pottery industry, was born at the family seat of Boyles Hall, Audley in early 1729, and baptised in the local church on 15 May that year. He was the eldest son of Smith Child of Audley and the wealthy heiress Mary nee Baddeley, whose family had a long Staffordshire pedigree. The Childs by contrast were originally a Worcestershire family, one branch of which had migrated to North Staffordshire, settling in Audley. They had once possessed considerable property, but most of this had been lost by the future admiral’s father, whom local historian John Ward described as ‘a man of polished manners, but wasteful in his habits’. His marriage to Mary Baddeley was therefore quite a coup by which his family inherited several of the Baddeley estates that his eldest boy, Smith, would inherit.

    Enjoying the patronage of the politician Earl Gower as well as Vice-Admiral Lord George Anson, young Smith Child was entered the navy in 1747, serving aboard HMS Chester under Captain Sir Richard Spry. He was commissioned lieutenant on 7 November 1755 whilst serving in the Mediterranean aboard the Unicorn under Captain Matthew Buckle, and returned home to become a junior lieutenant aboard the ancient Nore guardship Princess Royal commanded by Captain Richard Collins. He served as a lieutenant on several more ships during the Seven Years War seeing action aboard the 3rd rate HMS Devonshire at the siege of Louisbourg in North America in 1758, then on the much smaller frigate HMS Kennington. Child is said to have also seen service the siege of Pondicherry, India, during 1760-1761.

    A distant view of  Newfield Hall, left.

    After the war ended in 1763, like many officers Lieutenant Child returned home and from this point in his life that he settled down in the Potteries. He erected a large pottery factory in Tunstall, that between 1763-1790 produced a range of earthenware goods. The following year he married Margaret Roylance of Newfield, Staffordshire, acquiring a significant estate from her family. Initially he lived with his wife at Newcastle-Under-Lyme, but the following year he inherited his uncle’s seat, Newfield Hall, Tunstall, a large three-storey house with a five-bay entrance front and seven-bay side elevation, that enjoyed impressive views over much of the Potteries. In 1770, he moved into the hall rebuilding it and in his time on shore cultivated a keen interest in agricultural and other useful pursuits. Here the Childs lived a happy life and raised their five sons: Thomas, who as a midshipman was drowned at sea in 1782; John George whose son later became heir to the family estates; Smith who died without children; and Roylance and Baddeley, whose names recalled their most recent family history. But it was a short interlude in his naval career as at the beginning of what became the American War of Independence in 1775, Smith Child was recalled into service and early in 1777, was sent to take command of the hospital ship Nightingale in the Thames. Later that year he was promoted commander of the store ship HMS Pacific on 30 October 1777, taking the ship out to North America in the summer of 1778.

    He was posted captain on 15 May 1780, taking temporary command of the Raisonnable, but in August 1780 in the most important move of his career, Captain Child was given command of the 64-gun HMS Europe and took part in two important sea battles for the control of the strategic Chesapeake Bay. His enemies here would not be American sailors (the American rebels barely possessed a navy), but the French, who had weighed in heavily on side of the Americans, effectively funding and supplying the rebellion in retaliation for the defeat and loss of Canada to Britain in the Seven Years War. As part of Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot’s fleet, Child participated in the Battle of Cape Henry on 16 March in which the British fought off a French fleet attempting to enter the Bay. Positioned in the vanguard of Arbuthnot’s fleet, Europe was one of three ships left exposed by the admiral’s poor tactics, losing eight crewmen killed and 19 wounded to the punishing French bombardment. The British won this round despite their casualties, but the vital waterway would be the scene of one more dramatic fight. 

    A typical third rate ship of the line like Child’s ship HMS Europe.

    This was the Battle of Chesapeake Bay, also known as the Battle of the Virginia Capes, fought against a slightly larger French fleet on 5 September 1781, when HMS Europe along with the 74-gun HMS Montagu, formed the leading part of the centre division of Admiral Sir Thomas Graves’ fleet, and was heavily involved in the fighting that ensued. These two ships suffered considerable damage in the intense two-hour battle. Child’s report after the battle lists numerous masts and spars damaged or shot through, twelve shots struck the hull while there was much damage to the upper works, including splintered decking and fife rails at the base of the masts broken to bits; the rigging and shrouds were also badly cut up and three gun carriages had been damaged, one beyond repair. Europe had taken a pounding, ‘the ship strains and makes water’ Child’s report noted. There was a human cost too, nine members of her crew were killed in the action, and a further 18 wounded.

    Outgunned and battered by the encounter, the British fleet eventually withdrew from the action, finally losing control of the bay and the ability to keep their ground troops supplied with food and ammunition. This sorry state of affairs soon after resulted in the Franco-American victory at Yorktown, the knock-on effect of which saw the withdrawal of British forces from the war and Britain’s eventual recognition of the newly-founded United States of America. This outcome was no discredit to Smith Child, though, who had fought well and his standing in the navy enabled him to obtain preferment for most of Europe’s officers when the ship returned home and was paid off in March 1782.

    Peace was declared in 1783 and for the next six years Smith Child served at home. However, on the continent, more trouble was brewing when in 1789 the French Revolution broke out across the channel. Though confined to France, the bloody revolution would be the catalyst for a renewed bout of Anglo-French rivalry that started in 1792, when after defeating an invading Prussian led army at Valmy, the new French Republic launched an invasion of the Netherlands. The next year the deposed French King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were executed which caused outrage amongst the royal families and governments of Europe and brought Britain into the coalition that had formed to defeat the Republic. With a new war to fight, the Royal Navy – now a much fitter beast than during the American war – was again expanding and called in many of its old officers to fill in the gaps; this included Smith Child.

    After serving for some time in the Impress Service at Liverpool, in November 1795, Smith Child was given command of the HMS Commerce de Marseille, a huge French-built ship that had been surrendered to the Royal Navy in the 1793 Siege of Toulon. The ship, originally a 118-gun three-decker, at first seemed well built like most French vessels and an early report stated that she sailed as well as a frigate, but her construction gave the ship an unacceptably deep draft while her internal framing was found to be inadequate for the high seas and the hull suffered serious strain when sailing. Deemed unworthy of a major overhaul, the vessel had been quickly downgraded and remained languishing at anchor at Spithead until the autumn of 1795. She then underwent a partial repair, and was armed and equipped for sea. Shortly afterwards, however, the guns on her first and second decks were sent on shore again, the redundant gun ports were sealed up and she was converted to a store and transport ship. The ship was then loaded with 1,000 men and stores for transport, drawing a whopping 29 feet when fully laden. The ship was tasked as part of a large convoy of some 200 transports escorted by 8 ships of the line under Rear Admiral Christian, that was supposedly on a secret mission to the West Indies that would soon become much less secret after the disaster awaiting it off shore.

    Child’s ship was in poor condition before sailing and she was damaged beyond repair when shortly after the fleet had set out, on 17 and 18 November the English Channel was struck by a violent storm of nigh on hurricane strength. This sent Admiral Christian and his escort squadron running to Spithead for cover while the transport fleet was scattered, some sinking, others being driven ashore and wrecked. Some two hundred bodies were washed ashore after the storm and the fleet was left so disordered that it was not ready to make another attempt until early December, which was again battered by a fearsome storm. The Commerce de Marseille, though, would not be among them, because as a result of the first storm, ‘… this castle of a store-ship was driven back to Portsmouth; and, from the rickety state of her upper-works, and the great weight of her lading, it was considered a miracle that she escaped foundering. The Commerce-de-Marseille re-landed her immense cargo, and never went out of harbour again.’

    18th Century naval officers and crewmen.

    Child had commanded his last ship and after such a clunker he was perhaps glad of it. He was promoted to Rear Admiral on 14 February 1799, but it was a nominal rank and he apparently saw no further sea service. Subsequently promoted to Vice Admiral on 23 April 1804, and Admiral of the Blue (the junior position in the rank of full admiral) on 31 July 1810.

    At home, as well as being a noted pottery manufacturer, Admiral Child served at times as a Justice of the Peace for Staffordshire, a Deputy-Lieutenant of the county, and was a highly respected member of the local landed aristocracy. He died of gout of the stomach on 21 January 1813 at Newfield aged 84, and was buried in St. Margaret’s Church, Wolstanton, under a plain tombstone. His son and heir John had died two years previously, so Smith Child’s estate passed to his five year-old grandson who would later become the Conservative M.P, and noted philanthropist Sir Smith Child.

    Reference: The Graves Papers and Other Documents Relating to the Naval Operations of the Yorktown Campaign, July to October 1781, (New York, 1916) p. 67 and p.73. William James, The Naval History of Great Britain, Vol.1 (London, 1837), p.253. John Ward, The Borough of Stoke-Upon-Trent (1843) pp. 85-86.

  • A Soldier of the U.S. Cavalry

    John Livesley’s grave marker in Hanley Cemetery.

    In 1997, Hugh Troth of Ohio, published a tribute to his grandfather, The Life and Times of Isma Troth. Isma Troth had served as a soldier in the American Civil War and he wrote several letters charting his friendship with a fellow soldier named John Livesley whom he met in hospital when he was there recovering from his wounds. Troth’s account indicated that Livesley came from Potteries and using biographical information from this book and information from other social archives, local researchers were able to piece together the life of this otherwise forgotten local who had somehow got himself involved in a foreign war.

    John Livesley was born in Shelton on 12 October 1838, the son of pottery engraver and journeyman William Livesley and Sarah nee Brundrett. He enjoyed a privileged upbringing as his father was an increasingly prosperous man, who by 1851 had opened his own pottery and also ran a grocery business, all together employing 46 men, 23 women, 20 boys and 25 girls. As a result of his family’s wealth, John enjoyed a good education, attending a boy’s boarding school run by James and Harriet Grocott at Wilton House, Wrinehill near Betley on the Staffordshire border.

    As the family business grew, William Livesley entered into partnership with one Edwin Powell, and his name then regularly appeared in the local press, often for his philanthropy and support for public works and by the mid-1850s, John Livesley or J. Livesley likewise puts in a few appearances, attending performances or contributing money for some good cause supported by his father. But by 1861 census John had disappeared from the area.

    In fact, he had left the country and crossed the Atlantic to the United States, sailing in September 1860 aboard the RMS Persia to New York in company with 40 year old James Carr, a native of Hanley who two decades earlier had emigrated to the States and had established a successful pottery in New York. Both men give their occupation as ‘potter’ in the ship’s passenger list and it is not unreasonable to suppose that John Livesley, the son of a successful Hanley manufacturer had gone over with John Carr to work in his growing firm.

    Yet, it was a bad time to be travelling to the USA as growing tensions between the northern and southern states over the expansion of slavery, came to a head the following year. The southern slave-owning states split from the Union, forming a Confederacy, an act that pushed the country into a bloody civil war.

    Was John Livesley permanently settled in the States at this time, resisting the urge to join in the conflict, or just an occasional visitor to the country, criss-crossing the Atlantic and thus avoiding becoming involved? It is hard to say, but he was certainly in New York on 23 January 1864 when he was enlisted as a private in L Company 6th Regiment New York Cavalry of the Union army. Details on his enlistment are unclear, but suggestions have been made that he was drunk at the time, a not unlikely hypothesis as John seems to have had a habit of drinking to excess when he found himself in like-minded company. This is backed up by records that show that he was in hospital for the first week of his service due to “delirium”. He also seems to have enlisted under an assumed name, the enlistment records for John Livesley being struck through and replaced with the name ‘John Lindsley’. The records note that he was born in England, worked as a potter and gave a physical description: ‘gray eyes, brown hair, light complexion, 5 feet 8½ inches in height’. His term of enlistment was given to be three years.

    His new home, the 6th New York Cavalry, also known as the 2nd Ira Harris Guard, was a veteran unit, it had been formed at the outbreak of the Civil War and seen much service. Only a few months earlier it had taken part in the Battle of Gettysburg and since then played its part in numerous smaller actions taken on by the Army of the Potomac to which it belonged. With the onset of winter though it had gone into cantonments and when John Livesley enlisted, was employed in guarding the country between the Union lines and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

    US and Confederate cavalry in action at the Battle of Trevilian Station in 1864.

    On 3 May 1864, the regiment – now with Livesley, or rather ‘Lindsley’ in its ranks – returned to action, crossing the Rapidan river and taking part in the Wilderness campaign under General Grant. The regiment was part of the Cavalry Corps, and played a role in all the operations undertaken by the corps commander General Sheridan, notably in his famous raid around the Confederate capital of Richmond. At the battle of Yellow Tavern on 11 May 1864, the 6th New York Cavalry charged down the Brook Pike and went into and entered the line of the first defences about Richmond, being the first Union regiment to get so close to the city. The regiment then saw action in the Battle of Trevilian Station, and in numerous smaller actions and it was probably during one of the latter in August 1864 that John Livesley was badly wounded eight months after joining up.

    Carried from the front and admitted to the USA Post Hospital, Bolivar Heights, Harper’s Ferry on 20 August with gunshot wounds, Livesley was a wreck and had to have an arm and a leg amputated. Records show that aside from his physical injuries, he like many in the army was also suffering from chronic diarrhoea, but also that he was quickly transferred further from the seat of war, first to the Field Hospital at Sandy Hook, Maryland and finally to Rulison USA General Hospital at Annapolis Junction, Maryland on the road between Washington and Baltimore. Confined to a wheelchair, it was during his long convalescence here that he met Isma Troth, a former prisoner of war at the infamous Andersonville prison, who now worked as a clerk at the hospital, often writing letters home for the wounded, one of them being John Livesley whom he first met shortly after his arrival there. The two men developed a close friendship and Livesley’s father offered to pay for the two of them to come to England when they were discharged. The war effectively ended in April 1865 and John was mustered out of the Union army on 24 May 1865 whilst still at Annapolis Junction.

    Cheered by the thought of making a new life for himself, Troth was keen to go to Britain, noting that his friend’s family were influential and he might secure a good position there, but he had some major misgivings about Livesley’s drinking habits. In a letter written in June that year, Mr Troth wrote: ‘Mr Livesley is a good, kind friend of mine and is an honest, intelligent man – but he sometimes drinks’. He noted that he had known Livesley for about a year and that the man was not a regular drinker and he never drank when they went places, but on a couple of occasions he had gone out with soldiers who did drink and had come home in quite a state. Once he went with them to a neighbouring village and came back the worse for wear, and on being mustered out of the army he had gone out ‘with some fast boys’ to celebrate his release and had come back drunk, much to Troth’s disgust. After talking of their plans to travel to Britain, Isma said: ‘If my friend associates and drinks with these rough characters I shall not go with him, for I cannot place any confidence in a drunkard.’

    Despite these problems, the two friends did indeed take passage to Britain and Isma spent a year in England before travelling home. John returned to Stoke-on-Trent and was soon set up as a grocer in Lichfield Street, in Hanley, marrying a local girl Ellen Twigg from Bucknall on 18 June 1867. But tragically John Livesley died just four months later, on 23 October 1867, aged 29, his cause of death being given as epilepsy.

    Despite his father’s wealth John was buried in an unmarked grave in Hanley Cemetery. However, when he learned of his grandfather’s link with John Livesley, Hugh Troth endeavoured to see John’s service recognised and in 1997 contacted the United States Government to obtain a bronze plaque, recognising Private John Livesley’s service during the American Civil War. In 2003, the plaque was put on his burial spot, being unveiled by Mr Troth.

    Reference: Hugh Isma Troth, The Life and Times of Isma Troth (1997)