receiving & losing good conduct pay in the 1860s

[FROGSMILE]

I'm still a bit puzzled that my chap ended up in Kussowlie - his battalion was in Bangalore, it seems rather a long way to send a humble private to convalesce. If he needed the hills, I would have thought Darjeeling would have been a bit closer. Also I presume he was accompanied by his wife &, by then, four children. How would they have got there - presumably ship to Calcutta first, but then what? Possibly train from Calcutta to Delhi? And then... Would they have been part of a larger group? If so, who/what did this group comprise? I can't imagine a convalescent soldier & his family would have been let lose to make their way up to the hills on their own.

So many questions. I'd love to go back in time to be a 'fly on the wall' - so long as I could get back quickly!
All the best,
Beth

Beth, unbelievable as it may seem, until the train lines were extensively laid, all onwards travel after taking a boat as far as possible, was done by unsprung bullock carts at approx 2mph. It often took several weeks to reach a destination and there were organised way stations along the route.

[Beth]

Hello Maureen
Thanks for the link. As you can see, I'm very new to this area of research. The fibis site is evidently a very useful one, but unfortunately I have not, as yet, had time to explore it properly. Hopefully a job for this weekend.
Thanks again,
Beth

[Les Waring]

Les w. here

Thanks to Beth, Frogsmile and Maureen for the info. and links.

Beth.
I'm sure that the 32nd. greatly appreciated HM taking the trouble greet them, though I'm sure that as a source of satisfaction it probably came below the beer provided by the good people of Dover, the IMM medal with the 'Defence of Lucknow' clasp, the 4 V.C.s, though they didn't know about them yet, and probably most important, the one extra year of service towards pension granted as a result of the Lucknow Defence.

I'd be very interested in knowing about that book on the 'Sanitary Stations', I manage to get to UK very rarely, and spend almost all my time there at the National Archives,British Library, NAM and DCLI museum at Bodmin, but there's always far more material to research than I can manage in an average 3 weeks. Don't know when/if I'll be over again. Thank goodness, more and more stuff is on-line.

I really can't imagine why your man was in 'Kussowlie' if his regiment was stationed in Bangalore. A friend/colleague from there told me that it is one of the healthiest cities in India and there are hill stations in the vicinity, don't know if any of them were used by the British Army. To have made him travel over more than half the subcontinent would have been more likely to kill than cure him. There must be more to his story.

Frogsmile

Thanks for those excellent pictures of the 'hackeries' (bullock carts)- etymology , as usual, rather uncertain, apparently only the British used the term, which may have elements from Portuguese and local languages. With ref. to Beth's man, sending anyone across India in one of these would have been a form of punishment rather than a mode of transport. When they were used for moving British troops, as was done during the hot season, I'd imagine the type shown in your third picture was most typical of the 'model' employed.

Maureen

Thanks for pointing me to the fibiswiki, I'm just beginning to explore its many highways and by-ways.

[FROGSMILE]

Les w. here


Frogsmile

Thanks for those excellent pictures of the 'hackeries' (bullock carts)- etymology , as usual, rather uncertain, apparently only the British used the term, which may have elements from Portuguese and local languages. With ref. to Beth's man, sending anyone across India in one of these would have been a form of punishment rather than a mode of transport. When they were used for moving British troops, as was done during the hot season, I'd imagine the type shown in your third picture was most typical of the 'model' employed.

A "Hack" (as in Hackney) is traditional English word going back some way and meaning a Hackney Carriage (i.e. Taxi), so I think it is just a modification of that. Perhaps also connected, I imagine, with Hacking, as in riding out.

[Beth]

Hello Frogsmile & Les,

Frogsmile
Many thanks for the information re transport & the wonderful pictures - & sorry to be so late in my thanks, but being a newcomer to this site I hadn't noticed that the correspondence now ran into a second page. Total incompetence I know, but I won't make that mistake again!

Les & Frogsmile
Another piece of incompetence to report or, to be more precise, forgetfulness. When I was going through the muster rolls at the National Archives, there was a two year period (April 1868-March 1870) for which I couldn't discover where the battalion was stationed - the usual labels for each quarterly entry were missing. However the labels had returned by April !870, showing the battalion was now stationed at Calcutta. It was from this point that 'my' soldier was recorded as being 'sick at Kussowlie'. So this makes much more sense - though I still wonder why they didn't send him to Darjeeling. I had forgotten they had moved up to Calcutta when I made my earlier comment...another senior moment!

[Les Waring]

Beth

A bit more on locations. I've looked up the movements of the 1/19 and 2/19 in Hart's Army List (always a good quick way of checking). My Hart's are downloaded from Google Books.

2/19 were the battalion which went to Burma embarking in August 1863, after spending a number of years at various stations in Ireland.They then moved on to Bangalore (at least from 1867)

1/19 returned to Britain from the Crimea on 28 June 1856 only to be shipped off to India for the Mutiny/Rebellion on 22 July 1857. I don't have to hand their service during that campaign, which should be fairly easy to check.

Both battalions had depot companies or one serving both, at Chatham (Kent) which were used as 'feeders' for units overseas, and your man probably passed through there for training before being shipped out on a draft to India.

Although the only info. Hart gives for the next few years is that 1/19 were in 'India' or 'Bengal', by the 1861 edition (data always for the previous year) they were at Benares (now Varanasi). For the next few years (always in Bengal)

1862-63 editions Meean Mir
1864 '' 'Kussowlie' (!)
1865 '' Jullundur
1866 '' (no data - 19th not scanned)
1867 -68 '' Nowahera
1869 -> '' Rawal Pindee (Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan.) This would explain your man's presence in 'Kussowlie'

By this time (from 1868?) both battalions had their British depot at Sheffield (which I wouldn't wish on anyone, though both my parents were 'Tykes'.)

[Maureene]

Hi

This Report, published in 1870 briefly mentions Kussowlie as a convalescent depot, page 373
Abstract of the proceedings of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India, for the months of January, February, March and April 1870
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ffc ... J&pg=PA373 Google Books

1867 -68 '' Nowahera

This is Nowshera

Cheers
Maureen

[Beth]

Hello Les,

Thanks for the information. My chap was in the 2nd /19th & it's rather frustrating that the movements of the 1st/19th seem so much better documented. Perhaps because they saw more action?
This is what I've been able to piece together from the pay lists, muster rolls & the surgeon's report:

1st April - 30th June 1860, Aldershot. Richard Duty enlists 9th June 1860, Retford
1st July 1860 - 30th September 1860, Aldershot & Portsmouth.
1st October 1860 - 31st March 1861, Portsmouth. (Richard Duty had 'furlough' ie leave during this quarter, from 1st November to 29th December; married Emma Bird in Winterton, Lincs)

1st April - 30th June, 1861, stationed in Dublin.
1st July 1861- 30th June, 1862, Curragh Camp
1st July - 30th September, 1862, Curragh & another place I can't work out-possibly Newry??
1st October 1862- 31st March 1863, the unknown place (RD had furlo' again from 1st November 1862 to 19th January 1863)
1st April - 24th August 1863, Dublin
25th August 1863 - 16th December 1863, at sea, Cork to Rangoon

No record from 17th December 1863 to 31st March 1864, but presumably the battalion made its way to Thayetmyo & Tonghoo.

1st April 1864 - January/February 1868, Tonghoo & Thayetmyo.
NB muster rolls show battalion in Bangalore for period January - March 1868, but Surgeon's Report for 1868 is more precise, namely
Tonghoo, 1st January to 31st January 1868
Thayetmyo, 1st January to 11th February 1868
26th February to 31st December 1868, Bangalore

RD was on detachment in Tonghoo for the whole of his battalion's stay in Burma.

1st January 1869 to sometime between 9th & 15th December 1869, Bangalore. (The battalion left in stages)
Mid December 1869, Calcutta. Battalion still in Calcutta in March 1871
Richard Duty 'sick in Kussowlie' from 1st April 1870; sailed for England 17th November 1870

So it does seem as though he went from Calcutta to Kusowlie, the Rawal Pindee posting being the 1st/19th.

He cannot have been long back from India when he was enumerated in the 1871 census back in his home village of Scotter, in Lincolnshire, with his family. In addition to their four foreign born children, they now had a three week old baby, born in Scotter. His poor wife would have been pregnant during the long sea journey home, how awful!
It's interesting that the depot moved to Sheffield, because by the 1891 census he & his family had moved there. (All the Lincs branch of the family ended up in Yorkshire - my mother was born in Barnsley, which I reckon makes Sheffield look positively glamorous!)