CAN WE PUT A NAME to this man from the 13th Light Dragoons whose implacable calm in an earthquake so impressed Alicia Blackwood?
I was following up a ship (the Golden Fleece) which I found discussed in a book by Lady Alicia Blackwood about her experiences in the Crimean War.
By chance, I discovered she mentions a man of the 13th who was, as it were, seconded to her as a "wardmaster" for her unofficial hospital for soldiers' wives, widows and children at Scutari. Most frustratingly, she neglects to name him!
"A soldier as ward-master was also allowed, a useful man in many ways, and also a protection to the house; this man was of middle age, belonging to the 13th Dragoons, and was one who escaped with his life, but not without a wound, from the dreadful Balaklava charge.
He had been badly shot in the foot, but being now healed and discharged from the Hospital, instead of sending him home, he was permitted to remain for the light service required of him.
An event which happened at that time will testify to the effect of military discipline.
One day he was with us in our house helping to measure out a quantity of calico destined to the use of the women. Suddenly a very unusual sound was heard, as though we were in the midst of a violent hurricane, the house creaked, and reeled to and fro, something like the oscillation of a railway carriage, throwing the windows open, and clattering the crockery as though it must fall and be smashed.
It was an earthquake, of course; we rushed down the stairs and into the street, and found our neighbours had all done the same thing, as frightened as we were. The houses did not fall, however, and as soon as calm was a little restored we ventured back into our several homes.
I could hardly help smiling when once more I entered the room, to find the tall dragoon still standing there with the calico in his hand, apparently unmoved. He quietly said, "An earthquake, ma'am, I suppose!"
In a letter of March 18, 1855, Florence Nightingale disparagingly refers to the women and children who followed their men to the Crimea as "Allobroges", the shrieking camp followers of the ancient Gauls.[2]
In her account, Lady Alicia describes the horrific conditions under which she found them, "as much sinned against as sinning", and discusses the changes she was able to make for their relief as part of her work.
Lady Alicia Blackwood née Lambart (1818 - 30 July 1913), the daughter of George Frederick Augustus Lambart, Viscount Kilcoursie (1789 - 1828) and Sarah Coppin, was an English painter and nurse, married to the Rev. James Stevenson Blackwood (-1882).
As she recounts in A Narrative of Personal Experiences & Impressions during a Residence on the Bosphorus throughout the Crimean War (1881), Lady Alicia Blackwood and her husband "were deeply moved to go out" after hearing of "the battle of Inkerman, that terribly hard-fought struggle".
Dr. Blackwood obtained a chaplaincy to the forces; Lady Alicia and two young women friends accompanied him, determined to find some way to help.
Blackwood writes of why and how she came to the Crimea, and of a meeting with a sceptical Nightingale. She applied to Florence Nightingale at Scutari in December 1854. Nightingale's opinion of ladies who came out to assist the hospitals was generally low, as is shown in their first conversation, related by Lady Alicia:
I applied to Miss Nightingale to know where I could be most usefully employed. Possibly at this long distance of time she may forget that particular interview, but I do not; for the reply she gave me, or rather the question she put to me in reply, after a few seconds of silence, with a peculiar expression of countenance, made an indelible impression.
"Do you mean what you say?"
I own I was rather surprised.
"Yes, certainly; why do you ask me that?" I said.
"Oh, because," she responded, "I have had several such applications before, and when I have suggested work, I found it could not be done, or some excuse was made; it was not exactly the sort of thing that was intended, it required special suitability, &c."
"Well," I replied, "I am in earnest; we came out here with no other wish than to help where we could, and to be useful if possible."
"Very well, then," said Miss Nightingale, "if this is so, you really can help me if you will; in this Barrack are now located some two hundred poor women in the most abject misery. They are the wives of the soldiers who were allowed to accompany their husbands; a great number have been sent down from Varna; they are in rags, and covered with vermin. My heart bleeds for them, and they are at our doors daily clamouring for everything; but it is impossible for me to attend to them, my work is with the soldiers, not with their wives.
"Now, will you undertake to look after these poor women and relieve me from their importunity? there are funds to help, and bales of free gifts sent out; but we are so occupied, it is not possible for us to administer them.
"If you will take the women as your charge, I will send an orderly who will show you their haunts."
Of course I assented at once.
[Source: http:/digital.library.upenn.edu/women/blackwood/narrative/narrative.html#XII (accessed 20.1.2013)]
DNB (http://chargeofthelightbrigade.com/furtherinfo/blackwood_alicia/blackwood_alicia_dnb.html)
Wikipedia (http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Alicia_Blackwood (accessed 20.1.2013))
Florence Nightingale: The Crimean War, ed. Lynn McDonald
There is some interesting material on army wives and children who came out to the Crimea in "Florence Nightingale: The Crimean War, ed. Lynn McDonald", extracts of which can be found in the Google eBook version, here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mgKqhvGwURUC&pg
E.g. a search for "Alicia" yields references on pp14, 15, 204, 210, 235, 435, 486, 1010, 1054; one for "Allobroges" gives pp170, 210, 235.
I have collected and uploaded some of this here (NB - not for publication):
It seems Nightingale wrote at length about the need to improve conditions for families in barracks in Britain, e.g. McDonald remarks that:
"...Nightingale wrote an entire section in 'Notes on the Health of the British Army' [ = 'Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army' (1858)] describing the rights of soldiers' wives (such as they were) and their actual living conditions, both at war and in garrisons at home (457-476)." [these pages cannot be viewed online]
Presumably there is material too in her "Mortality in the British Army" (1858)?
I have not as yet been able to view this either.