A Rifleman of the 60th

 Introduction

 This is the final assessment for another Unit of the Diploma of Family History on writing up your family history, using both primary and secondary sources to build a picture of an ancestor’s lived experience. In this unit we were encouraged to turn our Family History research into a narrative and I chose one of the most interesting tales I’ve found so far – Rifleman Henry Rose.

Most of the narrative is based on primary and secondary sources, but there is also an element of family oral history. Elizabeth Mary Rose was my great-grandmother. My mother remembered her and the tales she told of her childhood in India – travelling out on a sailing ship and back on a steam ship, life on the North-West Frontier, seeing Pathan tribesmen in the street and riding on elephants.

The only unsupported element is the death of Ellen. There is no record of Ellen after her baptism in Winchester and I have chosen to make the not-unlikely assumption that she died on the ship to India. I haven’t yet found any records of military transport voyages, which would record such a death.

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 Henry Rose lay in a darkened room, cursing the weakness which had destroyed his career. He’d made some mistakes in his life, but the fever and rheumatism were just bad luck.

Marrying his Sarah hadn’t been a mistake, rather the best decision of his life. His father had died when he was fourteen and his mother had taken over the family business. She’d had ideas about stations in life and his future. His marriage to Sarah had been an escape. They’d had to move out because Mother resented Sarah bitterly. He’d got a job with a perfumer in Westminster. One lunchtime at the alehouse the recruiters had come in and, in a fit of madness, he’d taken the Queen’s shilling – 3rd Battalion, 60th Rifles. Sarah hadn’t been happy, but they’d lived close to her family. He remembered her holding Louisa and waving goodbye, and his first train trip, to Winchester, as he dozed off.

A sound woke him, and he turned to see a little girl watching him. Worried she might catch the fever he spoke, “go away Louisa”. But it wasn’t Louisa, it was baby Florence. He’d left Louisa behind with her mother in London when he’d joined the Depot company at Winchester. That had been a mistake. The Battalion had been stationed in India and the Depot company had been training drafts to send out to it. He’d suddenly realised he would be leaving Sarah behind in England to fend for herself, he might never see Louisa again, so he’d deserted, run back to Sarah, hid in her parents’ home. He’d been absent without leave for over a year, time enough for another child, but they couldn’t risk baptising Fred for fear of discovery. Sarah’s father had left Henry off the census in 1861, and he’d felt lost, a non-person. He and Sarah had decided that he would have to go back to his Battalion, but this time Sarah would go with him. Unsure of what would happen they’d decided to leave Louisa and Fred with their doting grandparents.

It had been a good decision. He’d taken his punishment then worked hard and been awarded his first Good Conduct Medal. They’d been allowed to move out of barracks, but, most importantly, Sarah and the three children born in Winchester had been selected as one of the families to accompany the draft to India. India the dreamland…

Someone opened the shutters and he flinched from the light – bright like the light when they’d arrived at Madras. There was no harbour, so they were lightered to shore, to Sarah’s horror, and moved into Fort St George. They’d lost Ellen on the voyage, and Sarah had been determined to get baby Harry baptised. It had been a strange, isolated life in the Fort without the bustle of a town around them, everything new, hot and exotic. He remembered the look in young Elizabeth’s eyes when she’d first seen an elephant.

He pushed at the blankets, the autumn weather warm & sweaty, like Bangalore. They’d travelled there by train – slower than English trains, wood fuelled, but better than marching. There they’d lived in the military cantonment where Sarah had a little shanty at the back of the barracks. But it hadn’t been long before the Battalion was transferred to Bellary on its dry inland plateau (by train again). It had been very hot there in Summer. He’d become a valued private, so when his time had come up, he’d reenlisted. He’d been awarded a second good conduct medal, but never promoted. The stigma of desertion had hung over him. In 1871 the Battalion had been posted to Aden and he’d been encouraged to transfer to the Second Battalion on the North West Frontier.

He’d never forget that long, hot, tedious rail journey via Bombay, then across the Deccan Plateau to Allahabad and then on to Jhelum where the railway ended and they’d changed to bullock carts to reach Nowshera. He’d been welcomed by the Second who did a lot of patrolling (keeping an eye on the tribesmen) and needed reliable men. After a year he’d been promoted to Corporal then Sergeant in quick succession. The future had looked good.

And then the fever and rheumatism had got him. The army had been very good, giving him a desk job in Meerut and promotion to staff sergeant. But he’d got weaker and weaker, so they’d invalided him home and transferred him to the Middlesex Militia here in Barnet. Just six weeks ago he’d been discharged to pension.

He became aware of the family around him, he must be dying. Forty-one was too young to die. He could have made Sergeant Major if it wasn’t for this damn fever and rheumatism.

Shouldn’t swear while he was dying though, think of God, and the children, and Sarah…

Bibliography

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