Born in London, 1831.
Died in the Crimea in 1855, aged 25.
Malcolm Ancell died in the camp at Kadikoi, about a mile north of Balaclava, on the 10th of August 1855, and was buried in the 11th Hussar cemetery on the road between Kadikoi and Karani.
In 1856 a wooden memorial existed bearing the words:
"Sacred to the memory of Malcolm Currie Angell [sic] Asst. Surgn. 11th (P.O.A.) Hussars, who died August 10th 1855, aged 25 years."
From the memoirs of R.S.M. George Loy Smith:
"Our sergeant [?], Surgeon Ansell [sic], died on the 10th August of a putrid fever. I at once took an inventory of his effects, which I sold by auction in the centre of the encampment a few days afterwards (it being my duty to take possession of and sell by auction the effects of any deceased officers, and after deducting a commission of five per cent to hand over the balance to the major of the regiment.)
When I held up his dress jacket, none of the officers present would bid for it as a change of clothing had taken place, (tunics being substituted in place of dress jackets and pelisses), so I bid 15s. There being no advance I knocked it down to myself.
The other articles were sold equally cheap, the officers not caring to possess the clothing of one who had died from such a terrible disease.
Although Mr. Ansell died in the centre of the encampment, his was the only case of its kind in the regiment during the campaign."
[Source: George Loy Smith, A Victorian RSM, 1987, pp.198-199]
[PB: "Putrid fever" presumably the louse-borne disease Typhus, also known as "camp fever", "jail fever", "hospital fever", "ship fever", "famine fever".]