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LIVES OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
The E.J. Boys Archive

IN PROGRESS — NOT FOR PUBLICATION

1261, Corporal William Henry BISHOP — 4th Light Dragoons

Birth & early life

Born at Yeovil, Somerset.

Enlistment

Enlisted at Chesham on the 27th of April 1846.

Age: 22.

Height: 5' 8".

Trade: Draper.

Service

From Private to Corporal: 24th of January 1852.

Sent to Scutari on the 26th of October, and where he remained until being returned to the regiment on the 13th of December 1854.

Reduced to Private by a Regimental Court-martial on the 9th of August 1855 for "being drunk on stable duty."

Discharge & pension

Discharged, "by purchase" from Brighton on the 23rd of April 1858. Payment of £10.

Conduct: "good".

In possession of one Good Conduct badge.

Medals & commemorations

Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma and Sebastopol.

Further medal information archived.

Neither HLTB or the medal rolls held at the PRO credit him with the clasp for Inkerman, but a Nominal Return of some 30-plus men of the regiment who are shown on this as being issued with their medals on the 7th of October 1855 with various clasps records him as being given it with the clasps for Alma and Inkerman.

(This roll forms part of a series of documents etc., under the title "Medals. Cavalry Division, Crimea 1854-6", that were retained by Colonel Charles Shute, A.A.G of the Cavalry Division, and came onto the open market in 1997 and a copy — or the original — is not held by the PRO.)

This could not have been possible, he being at the Scutari Hospital until the 13th of December 1854, and there is no knowledge of such a medal ever being on the market.

Life after service

Death & burial


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