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EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY SCOTTISH MILITARY PENSIONERS AS HOMECOMING SOLDIERS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

J. E. COOKSON
J. E. COOKSON*
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury
*
School of History, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealandjohn.cookson@canterbury.ac.nz
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Abstract

This article makes use of the data-rich sources, little used by historians, relating to rank and file soldiers, especially those who became Chelsea Hospital outpensioners. It particularly seeks to find out the migration history of such men in the years after Waterloo, focusing on Scots. The conclusion is that Scots were under-represented among soldiers who became imperial settlers. There appear to be good reasons for Scots finding colonial conditions uncongenial, and, in this respect, there was little difference between the ‘Napoleonic’ soldiery and the succeeding generation who belonged more definitely to an imperial service army. Most, in fact, returned to Scotland, and then to that part of the country familiar to them. Moreover, they refute an image of veterans as marginalized men. They are shown, on the whole, to have settled back into civilian society with surprising ease, law-abiding rather than lawless, respected rather than despised or feared.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 319 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 For veterans in the Canadian colonies see especially Raudzens, George K., ‘A successful military settlement: Earl Grey's enrolled pensioners of 1846 in Canada’, Canadian Historical Review, 52 (1971), pp. 389–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnson, J. K., ‘The Chelsea pensioners in Upper Canada’, Ontario History, 53 (1961), pp. 273–89Google Scholar; Martell, J. S., ‘Military settlements in Nova Scotia after the war of 1812’, Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, 24 (1938), pp. 75–105Google Scholar; Playter, George F., ‘An account of three military settlements in eastern Ontario – Perth, Lanark and Richmond, 1815–1820’, Ontario History Society, Papers and Records, 20 (1923), pp. 98–104.Google Scholar

2 Diana M. Henderson, Highland soldier: a social study of the Highland regiments, 1820–1920 (Edinburgh, 1989), pp. 163–4, shows that the Highland regiments, 1820–81, spent about a third of the time in the British Isles. For the system of rotation developed in the eighteenth century see J. A. Houlding, Fit for service: the training of the British army, 1715–1795 (Oxford, 1981), pp. 19–23.

3 Patrick Fitzgerald, ‘“Come back, Paddy Reilly”: aspects of Irish return migration, 1600–1845’, in Marjory Harper, ed., Emigrant homecomings: the return movement of emigrants, 1600–2000 (Manchester, 2005), pp. 39–40.

4 Anon., Papers illustrative of the origin and early history of the Royal Hospital at Chelsea (London, 1872), pp. 88–9.

5 The National Archives (TNA), WO23/147.

6 A return of 1847 gave 5,181 outpensioners as living in the ‘Colonies and Europe’; but in 1852 the estimates for 1853–4 provided for 629 to be paid in Hanover and other foreign territories. Return of enrolled pensioners, 1847, TNA, WO43/844, fo. 487; ‘Memorandum relative to number and efficiency of pensioners in the United Kingdom and abroad’, [Jan. 1852], p. 3, TNA, CO885/1/5.

7 Parliamentary papers, House of Commons (PP), 1846, xxvi, p. 178, gives annual averages of the length of service of pensioners, 1834–43. These annual figures range from 20.10 to 24.5 years. The average age of admission to the pension in the same period is shown to have been 39–40.

8 A. M. T[ulloch], ‘Memorandum relative to frauds on out-pension list at Glasgow’, 31 Oct. 1839; ‘Details of a plan for the payment and organisation of the Chelsea outpensioners’, [1840], TNA, WO43/598b, fos. 156–83; ‘Memorandum respecting the statement and observations of Major Tullock’, [1842], TNA, WO251/2, fos. 14–19.

9 Natalie Petiteau, Lendemains d'Empire: les soldats de Napoléon dans la France du XIX. siécle (Paris, 2003).

10 T. M. Devine, ed., Scottish emigration and Scottish society (Edinburgh, 1992), p. 5.

11 On the return movement of British and European emigrants see Harper, ed., Emigrant homecomings; Mark Wyman, Round trip to America: the immigrants return to Europe, 1880–1930 (Ithaca, NY, 1993); Dudley Baines, Migration in a mature economy: emigration and internal migration in England and Wales, 1861–1900 (Cambridge, 1985), ch. 5; J. D. Gould, ‘European inter-continental emigration. The road home: return migration from the U.S.A.’, Journal of European Economic History, 9 (1980), pp. 41–112.

12 ‘Schedule showing the distribution of the pensioners throughout Scotland’, [1840], TNA, WO43/598b, fos. 202–3.

13 These returns are found in TNA, WO22.

14 Colin G. Pooley and Ian D. Whyte, eds., Migrants, emigrants and immigrants: a social history of migration (London, 1991), p. 12.

15 National Library of Scotland (NLS), Highland Society of Scotland MSS, Dep. 268/45. Who created this register and for what purpose remains obscure, though it exists among the papers of the Highland Society. It may have been the Society, which at this time showed interest in depositing rolls of regiments in the proposed National Monument. The register was certainly drawn up in 1816; it includes admissions to the pension up to May 1816.

16 Cookson, J. E., ‘The Napoleonic wars, military Scotland and tory Highlandism’, Scottish Historical Review, 78 (1999), pp. 60–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert Clyde, From rebel to hero: the image of the Highlander, 1745–1830 (East Linton, 1995).

17 T. M. Devine, Scotland's empire, 1600–1815 (London, 2003) is the chief text.

18 Andrew Mackillop, ‘More fruitful than the soil’: army, empire, and the Scottish Highlands, 1715–1815 (East Linton, 2000), p. 185.

19 Baines, Dudley, ‘European emigration, 1815–1930: looking at the emigration decision again’, Economic History Review, 47 (1994), pp. 526–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, discusses the ‘information hypothesis’.

20 J. E. Cookson, The British armed nation, 1793–1815 (Oxford, 1997), pp. 126–7; ‘Return of the number of English, Scotch and Irish … in the British army, 1 January 1830 and 1 January 1840’, PP, 1841, xiv, pp. 93–4.

21 Dudley Baines, Emigration from Europe, 1815–1930 (Basingstoke, 1991), p. 10.

22 TNA, WO23/147, in which the birthplaces of pensioners are recorded for entries from 5 June 1817 to 7 Feb. 1821. For Upper Canada see ‘Return of commuted pensioners’, 26 Nov. 1838 (567 names) and ‘Supplementary return’ (87 names), PP, 1839, xxxi. 188–96, 201–2. For New Zealand see ‘Nominal lists’ (371 names) of five detachments sent to New Zealand in 1847, TNA, WO43/89. In this article nationality has been established by consulting the TNA online databases of WO97 and WO121.

23 TNA, WO23/148 (1827–39), 149 (1839–47), 150 (1848–53).

24 TNA, WO97. These registers largely consist of the discharge documents of soldiers who were admitted to the pension. Parish and county of birth are recorded in most instances. The Friends of the National Archives have produced an on-line database that includes this information, and it is possible to carry out a county search regiment by regiment.

25 For 1840–5 admissions the registers consulted were TNA, WO120/55 (1st Foot), 57 (26th Foot), 59 (42nd Foot), 62 (71st, 73rd Foot), 64 (91st, 92nd, 93rd Foot).

26 The regiments used for this Irish sample were the eight regiments above, returning 215 Irish-born pensioners, and two Irish regiments, the 27th Foot (TNA, WO120/57) and 88th Foot (TNA, WO120/63) returning 60 and 65 respectively.

27 Aberdeen, Ayr, Dundee, 1st and 2nd Edinburgh, 1st and 2nd Glasgow, Inverness, Paisley, Perth, Stirling, Thurso. The Border counties were included in the Carlisle and Northumberland districts.

28 Petiteau, Lendemains d'Empire, p. 179; Russell L. Johnson, Warriors into workers: the Civil War and the formation of urban-industrial society in a northern city (New York, NY, 2003), pp. 292, 294–5.

29 According to the 1947 United States census, 72 per cent of servicemen had returned to the county where they had been raised. Peter Karsten, Soldiers and society: the effects of military service and war on American life (Westport, CT, 1978), p. 32.

30 W. Hamish Fraser and R. J. Morris, eds., People and society in Scotland, 1830–1914 (Edinburgh, 1990), p. 16.

31 N. H. Carrier and J. R. Jeffery, External migration: a study of the available statistics, 1815–1950 (London, 1953), p. 15.

32 The precise percentages were 45·1 per cent of guardsmen and 31·7 per cent of cavalrymen living outside Scotland.

33 F. M. L. Thompson, Victorian England: the horse-drawn society (London, 1970).

34 In this article I use the regions identified by M. W. Flinn as clusters of counties. See the map in Michael Flinn, ed., Scottish population history from the seventeenth century to the 1930s (Cambridge, 1977), p. xxiii. His eastern and western Lowland regions comprised the counties of Stirling, Clackmannan, Kinross, West Lothian, Midlothian, East Lothian, Fife, Angus, Perth, Ayr, Lanark, Renfrew, and Dunbarton.

35 Ibid., p. 462.

36 Proceedings of select committee on army and ordnance expenditure, 19 Apr. 1850, PP, 1850, x, p. 285.

37 Attestation books, 1796–1857, Edinburgh City Archives, SL54/1-6. For 1796–1802 a sample of 3,000 recruits was taken. For the other years recruits joining Scottish-name regiments only were counted, though these made up a majority of the attested men.

38 On admission to the pension a man was issued with his ‘Instructions’, a paper that included a physical description, details of military service, and nominated place of residence. This document was presented to the paying officers, though from 1829, to check impersonation and debt evasion, the pensioner also had to get a ‘declaration’ each quarter from a magistrate authorizing payment. On a change of residence, requiring a new place of payment, new ‘Instructions’ had to be obtained from Chelsea Hospital.

39 Murphy's movements are recorded in the quarterly returns of the 1st Glasgow district, 1845–6, TNA, WO22/127.

40 The whereabouts of these men in 1840–5 were ascertained from the same registers noted in n. 24.

41 The returns consulted were found in TNA, WO22/121 (Dundee district), 127 (1st Glasgow), 131 (Inverness).

42 John Fasson to Richard Neave, 27 May 1839, TNA, WO43/598b, fo. 16.

43 A. J. Moorhead to Neave, 16 June 1840, TNA, WO43/598a, fo. 84; Select committee, Tulloch's evidence, 19 Apr. 1850, PP, 1850, x, p. 291.

44 Mather, F. C., ‘Army pensioners and the maintenance of civil order in early nineteenth-century England’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 36 (1958), pp. 110–24Google Scholar; Stanley H. Palmer, Police and protest in England and Ireland, 1780–1850 (Cambridge, 1988).

45 William A. Brigend to Neave, 26 Nov. 1839, TNA, WO43/598a, fo. 18.

46 Baines ‘Looking at the emigration decision’, pp. 525–44, is a sophisticated critique.

47 For veterans' benefit societies see National Archives of Scotland (NAS), FS1/1/5, 10/2, 17/30, 20/18; Stirling Journal, 20 Sept. 1821; Brigend to Neave, 26 Nov. 1839, F. H. Talman to Neave, 9 Mar. 1840, TNA, WO43/598a, fos. 21, 170–1. See also parliamentary returns of friendly societies, PP, 1824, xviii, pp. 245–67; 1837, li, pp. 89–125.

48 Moorhead to Neave, 7 Aug. 1839, TNA, WO43/598A, fo. 8; A. E. J. Cavendish, An reismeid chataich: the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, 1799–1927 (n.p., 1928), p. 49.

49 J. E. Cookson, ‘Regimental worlds? Interpreting the experience of British soldiers during the Napoleonic wars’, in Alan Forrest, Karen Hagemann, and Jane Rendall, eds., Soldiers, citizens and civilians: experiences and perceptions of the French wars, 1790–1820 (Basingstoke, 2008), 23–42.

50 [Thomas Howell], A soldier of the 71st, ed. Christopher Hibbert (Moreton-in-Marsh, 1996), pp. 66–7, 112. A similar story is found in Stirling Observer, 10 Sept. 1840.

51 Flinn, ed., Scottish population history, pp. 324–5, shows that in 1861 86·8 per cent of males in the 50–4 age group were married. The pensioner data comes from ‘Half yearly return of the occupations, employment & earnings of the out pensioners … with the number of wives and children’, 1st Glasgow district, 31 Dec. 1843, TNA, WO22/127; Inverness, 31 Dec. 1842, TNA, WO22/131; Stirling, 31 Dec. 1842, TNA, WO22/137.

52 General H. Clinton to - - - - - -, 3 Apr. 1810, TNA, WO25/3224; ‘Return of women and children belonging to certain regiments at home’, TNA, WO1/946/53; Shirley E. Kendall, The Royal New Zealand Fencibles: a complete index (Taihape, 1993), p. 60.

53 Jan de Vries, The industrious revolution: consumer behaviour and the household economy, 1650 to the present (Cambridge, 2008).

54 Bruce S. Elliott, ‘“Settling down”: masculinity, class and the rite of return in a transnational community’, in Harper, ed., Emigrant homecomings, pp. 154–5.

55 67·3 per cent of those listed in the Scottish register of 1816 received pensions of a shilling or more. For the distribution of pensioners according to the different rates, 1823–37, see Tulloch, ‘Memorandum for secretary at war relative to mortality on Chelsea outpension list’, [10 May 1839], TNA, WO43/701, fo. 202. In the 1840s the percentage of shilling or more men appears to have again risen to over 60 per cent as the post-Napoleonic generation of soldiers served out their time. A.M. T[ulloch], ‘Memorandum on military colonization’, 21 Sept. 1846, University of Durham Archives (UDA), 3rd Earl Grey MSS, GRE/b129/3/11, p. 2.

56 Memorandum, with comments by R. A. Stewart, 21 Apr. 1832, TNA, WO43/542, fo. 69. See also pension ‘Regulations’ of 1829, where the different classes are determined by the ability to earn a ‘livelihood’. Ibid., WO43/324, fos. 27–40.

57 Select committee, Tulloch's evidence, 19 Apr. 1850, PP, 1850, x, p. 294.

58 ‘Report submitted for the consideration of the … commissioners of Chelsea Hospital, with reference to a pamphlet entitled “Observations principally on the Act of 59 George 3d, ca. 12 by an Extra Clerk”’, TNA, WO247/60.

59 Neave to Charles Trevelyan, 24 Mar. 1842, TNA, WO251/2, fo. 82. See n. 42 for the source for the 1850 figure.

60 Fasson to Neave, 11 June 1839, TNA, WO43/598b, fos. 33–46.

61 Memorandum [by R. W. Hay, Colonial Office], [1835], TNA, WO43/542, fos. 195–6.

62 Select committee, Tulloch's evidence, 19 Apr. 1850, PP, 1850, x, p. 285.

63 ‘Half yearly return of the occupations, employment and earnings of the outpensioners … ’, 1st Glasgow district, 31 Dec. 1843, TNA, WO22/127; Inverness, 31 Dec. 1842, TNA, WO22/131; Stirling, 31 Dec. 1842, TNA, WO22/137.

64 Ibid. A sample of 1,000 recruits whose names appear in the Edinburgh attestation books, 1796–1802, shows that 54 per cent gave their occupation as either weaver or labourer. See also Roderick Floud, Kenneth Wachter, and Annabel Gregory, Height, health and history: nutritional status in the United Kingdom, 1750–1980 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 98–110.

65 Lt-Colonel Gurwood, ed., The dispatches of the duke of Wellington during his various campaigns (12 vols., London, 1837–8), x, p. 496.

66 For the reports of inspectors see TNA, WO43/598A, fos. 1–176 passim. For 40,000 pensioners examined see ‘Memorandum of correspondence and proceedings relative to the War Office plan for organisation of the out-pensioners of Chelsea Hospital under military officers’, July 1842, TNA, WO247/70.

67 Neave to Trevelyan, 24 May 1842, TNA, WO251/2, fos. 82–3.

68 David Stewart, Sketches of the character, manners and present state of the Highlanders of Scotland (2 vols., repr. Edinburgh, 1977), ii, pp. 174–5; ‘Warding and liberation book’, Edinburgh Tollbooth, 1814–16, 1816–17, NAS, HH11/39, 21/6/13; Moorhead to Neave, 7 Aug. 1839, TNA, WO43/598a, fo. 8. For ‘public employment’ of pensioners see ‘Memorandum relative to number and efficiency of pensioners ….’, [Jan. 1852], p. 2, TNA, CO885/1/5.

69 Cookson, British armed nation, pp. 146–52; Heather Streets, ‘Identity in the Highland regiments in the nineteenth century: soldier, region, nation’, in Steve Murdoch and A. Mackillop, eds., Fighting for identity: Scottish military experience, c. 1550–1900 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 213–36; Stuart Allan and Alan Carswell, Thin red line: war, empire and visions of Scotland (Edinburgh, 2004).

70 Alexander Mackay, Sketches of Sutherland characters (Edinburgh, 1889), pp. 156–7, 161–2.

71 Inspection returns for the army are found at TNA, WO27. The eleven Scottish-name regiments were Scots Greys (2nd Dragoons), Cameronian Regiment (26th Foot), Royal Highland Regiment or Black Watch (42nd Foot), 71st (Highland) Light Infantry or Glasgow Highlanders, Duke of Albany's Own Highlanders (72nd Foot), 78th Highland Regiment or Ross-shire Buffs, Cameron Highlanders (79th Foot), Perthshire Light Infantry (90th Foot), Argyllshire Regiment (91st Foot), 92nd Highland Regiment or Gordon Highlanders, 93rd Highland Regiment or Sutherland Highlanders.

72 The precise figures are: 1796–1802, 501 out of 2,257 recruits (22·1 per cent); 1811–13, 222 out of 925 (24·0 per cent); 1826–30, 791 out of 1,567 (50·4 per cent), 1836–40, 864 out of 1,164 (72·3 per cent).

73 See for example, J. S. Neith, Reminiscences of Brechin and its characters (n.p., 1878), pp. 108–18; D. Macara, Crieff: its traditions and characters with anecdotes of Strathearn (Edinburgh, 1881), pp. 30, 92, 185, 230; Mackay, Sketches of Sutherland characters, pp. 156–62; William Drysdale, Old faces, old places and old stories of Stirling (Stirling, 1899), pp. 253–5; John Gilroy, Paisley characters: military and otherwise (Paisley, 1901), pp. 11–17, 58–83; John Geddie, ed., Old Morayshire characters (Elgin, 1931), pp. 56–7, 83, 144–5, 154.

74 Scotsman, 8 May 1833. For other obituaries see Edinburgh Evening Courant, 5 Oct. 1818 (James Hay), 1 Mar. 1819 (James Grant), 22 Jan. (James Robertson), 7 Feb. 1820 (John Anderson), 27 Aug. 1825 (Robert Menzies); Scotsman, 14 Jul. 1830 (William Cameron), 26 Jan. 1831 (‘Old Logan’), 17 Oct. 1838 (Angus Fraser).

75 Data extracted from NLS, Dep. 268/45; TNA, WO120/55, 57, 59, 62, 64.

76 ‘Summary of ages of 22,012 of pensioners paid in Ireland and which may be assumed as the average in Great Britain’, [1847], TNA, WO43/844, fo. 487.

77 L. Sullivan to Neave, 30 May 1840, TNA, WO251/2, fo. 39; PP, 1850, x, p. 285.

78 In 1842 4,502 out of 10,398 Scottish pensioners were located in Glasgow, Paisley, and Edinburgh districts. ‘Abstract shewing the proposed final arrangements ….’, [1842], TNA, WO251/2, fos. 71–7.

79 ‘Half yearly return of the occupations ….’, Inverness district, 31 Dec. 1842, TNA, WO22/131.

80 As revealed by a sample of 1,000 men discharged from the army, 1814–50, extracted from the lists of TNA, WO120/35, 69, 70 compiled by Norman K. Crowder, British army pensioners abroad, 1772–1899 (Baltimore, MD, 1995).

81 In 1852 7,083 pensioners were ‘resident abroad’ in the British dominions. 4,002 (56·5 per cent) were in British North America and 1,327 (18.7 per cent) were in Australia. ‘Memorandum relative to number and efficiency of pensioners ….’, [Jan. 1852], p. 3, TNA, CO885/1/5. For the New Zealand pensioners see Kendall, New Zealand Fencibles. For the 1831–2 scheme see Johnson, ‘The Chelsea pensioners in Upper Canada’.

82 5,181 pensioners were resident in the ‘colonies and Europe’ in 1847, but about 700 were foreign veterans residing on the Continent. TNA, WO43/844, fo. 487. According to the registers (TNA, WO23/148–9) 2,021 were admitted to the pension in the colonies, 1830–47, but to these would have to be added those pensioners who migrated to the colonies from Britain and Ireland.

83 Marcus Ackroyd et al., Advancing with the army: medicine, the professions, and social mobility in the British Isles, 1790–1850 (Oxford, 2006), pp. 162–5.

84 [Tulloch], Memorandum, 25 Sept. 1846, UDA, Grey MSS. Hew Strachan, Wellington's legacy: the reform of the British army, 1830–1854 (Manchester, 1984), pp. 184–7, explains the rotation system.

85 Charlotte Macdonald, A woman of good character: single women as immigrant settlers in nineteenth-century New Zealand (Wellington, 1990), p. 140; Eric Richards, ‘Running home from Australia: intercontinental mobility and migrant expectations in the nineteenth century’, in Harper, ed., Emigrant homecomings, pp. 95–6. 87 per cent of the pensioners who formed the New Zealand Fencibles in 1847–52 were married; this was because the War Office preferred to send out married men as likely to settle more readily. Lyndon Fraser, ed., Irish migration and New Zealand settlement (Dunedin, 2000), p. 57.

86 Andrew Porter, ed., The Oxford history of the British empire: the nineteenth century (Oxford, 1999), pp. 514, 536.

87 Percentages extracted from WO97 database. In the 1840s about one pensioner in eight was a Scot. Scots were 8 per cent of the Newfoundland corps and 12 per cent of the Upper Canada corps.

88 Richards, ‘Running home’, p. 83.

89 ‘Memorandum relative to number and efficiency of Pensioners ….’, [Jan. 1852], pp. 5–6, 9, TNA, CO885/1/5.

90 Ibid., p. 10. 1,804 sent out to New Zealand (715), Van Diemans' Land (522), Western Australia (274), Canada (159), Moreton Bay (28), Falkland Islands (30), Hudson's Bay Territory (76).

91 Figures derived from a sample of 1,000 men taken from Crowder, British army pensioners.

92 These calculations are based on estimates that the Irish-born pensioner population in the early 1820s numbered 22,000 and the Scottish-born 14,000 out of a grand total of 90,000–95,000 pensioners. The estimates for the 1840s were 27,000 Irish, 10,000 Scots, and a total of 80,000 pensioners.

93 Keith Jeffrey, ‘The Irish military tradition and the British empire’, in Keith Jeffrey, ed., An Irish empire? Aspects of Ireland and the British empire (Manchester, 1996), pp. 94–122; David Fitzpatrick, ‘Ireland and the empire’, in Porter, ed. The Oxford history of the British empire: the nineteenth century, pp. 504–15; Kevin Kenny, ‘The Irish in the empire’, in Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British empire (Oxford, 2004), pp. 90–122.