Enlisted at Coventry on the 16th of August 1840.
Age: 18.
Height: 5' 9".
Trade: None shown.
Sent to Scutari on the 22nd of February 1855 and died there on there on the 9th of March 1855.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman and Sebastopol.
At the auction held in the sale-rooms of Debenham and Storr's on the 30th of January 1908, Lot 587 was a "Pistol taken from a Russian Officer during the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava by John Bruce, late 13th Light Dragoons."
A stone erected over his grave in the cemetery of the General Hospital at Scutari, Grave No. 58. The inscription reads:
"Sacred to the memory of Private John Bruce, 13th Light Dragoons, who departed this life the 9th of March 1855. Aged 35 years. Erected by his affectionate wife."
(See photograph of this stone in the 13th Hussar file.)
EJB: This grave is next to that of Captain Hely-Hutchinson of the 13th Light Dragoons. What was formerly the hospital at Scutari now forms part of a complex of military buildings which are now in a "restricted area", permission having to be sought of the military authority for photographs to be taken under military escort and then only of the graves.