Commemorations
Attended the first Balaclava Banquet in 1875.
Member of the Balaclava Commemoration Society in 1879.
Signed the Loyal Address to the Queen in 1887.
Attended most of the Annual Dinners and was certainly present in 1892, 1893, 1895, 1897, 1899 and 1901.
Portrait of William Bird in the Illustrated London News, 30th October 1875.
(Click on image to enlarge)
His portrait and account of the Charge appeared in the Balaclava Banquet commemorative issue of the Illustrated London News, 30th of October 1875. (There are copies, and also a photograph taken of him in later life, in the 8th Hussar file).
His account also appeared in the Daily Telegraph, 16 October 1875 (judging by the date, this may have been the original), and in Sheldrake's Aldershot and Sandhurst Military Gazette on the 30th of October 1875 (which can be viewed here):
William Bird, belonging to the 8th Hussars, who composed the third line of the charge, says:
"Colonel Shewell commanded the regiment, the next in command being Captain Tompkinson. The comrade who covered me was Tom Hefferon; he had only come up from the hospital at Scutari two days before, and, poor fellow, was very ill. As soon as we began to charge he said, 'By God, boys, do you have this firing every morning?' I answered, 'This was nothing to what we generally have,' little thinking what it would lead to.
I remember that he and Sergeant-Major M'Clure were the first I saw killed. Both of them, I believe, were shot through the head, and immediately fell from their horses; I never saw them again.
Opposite the second battery, on the right of us, I lost my first horse, which was shot dead; but by a skilful movement, I landed on my feet, and was not hurt. Shortly afterwards I caught a stray horse, which was riderless, belonging to the Scots Greys, and rejoined my troop.
My feelings as I went down the valley were principally that of intense excitement — a sort of sensation of madness.
At the bottom of the valley we halted some time, wondering what to do. I heard Lieutenant Phillips shout to Colonel Shewell, 'The Lancers are cutting off our retreat!' to which Colonel Shewell replied, 'No, Phillips; it's the 17th coming to our relief.'
Immediately afterwards I heard Lord George Paget call out, "Where is the General?" Colonel Shewell answered that he did not know. Lord George then said that we had better take our regiments back as best we could. Colonel Shewell, having wheeled us about, said, "Every man for himself, and God for us all. Go into them, men!'
We then made for the Lancers of the enemy, and they opened their lines for us to pass, but we did not feel inclined to go through. I did not think it was a trap for us, but there was a sort of feeling of devilment or courage in us at the time, and we would not avail ourselves of their opening, but cut our way past their right and left flanks.
In this charge my second horse, which had been shot, fell on my left leg, and I remained on the ground until relieved from my painful position by some of the enemy's soldiers.
When I found I could not move my leg from under my horse, I thought it was all over with me, because I had heard that the Russian soldiers were very barbarous, and killed all their prisoners; but to my agreeable surprise they ordered me to accompany them, with several other of my comrades, to the bottom of the valley, where we were assured by a Russian officer that we were in the hands of Christians, and would be taken care of. I had received a bullet wound through the calf of the right leg, and a lance wound in the arm.
The Russians kept me a prisoner for twelve months. On the following morning the 26th October, 1854 in company with a number of other prisoners, I was brought before General Liprandi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army. He asked us what amount of brandy had been served out to us that morning. We replied that we had had neither brandy nor victuals of any kind, telling him that we were very hungry.
The General then ordered his aide-de-camp to see that our wants were attended to, and we afterwards obtained some beautiful white bread and German sausage. While appeasing our hunger we were surrounded by the Russian soldiers, and some of them gave us some apples. According to General Liprandi's orders we obtained also some native drink, which they call vodka.
We had handed to us also some marching clothes, and afterwards marched up the country to Veronetz, which took us from three to four months to accomplish through a severe Russian winter.
Our treatment from the higher class of Russians was of a very kind character, but the peasantry behaved to more like brutes than Christians, and our privations were great.
At Veronetz, Mr. Catlin, an English merchant, took charge of me, he undertaking to be responsible for my body; and during the three months I was with him he treated me most kindly. At the expiration of this time a Russian officer fetched me, and I was exchanged with my fellow prisoners at Odessa, and rejoined my regiment in the Crimea."
James Wightman of the 17th Lancers mentions him in his "Memoirs" for an incident which took place when the prisoners were on their way back to Odessa for repatriation:
"But when near Odessa a very unpleasant incident happened. Arriving one night at a village when there was nothing to eat, we sent three of our number to go to and buy provisions on a small village on the other side of a river. On their way back, whilst waiting for a boat, they were suddenly attacked by six men armed with heavy clubs, who felled, and all but stunned them.
Recovering themselves, they vigorously went for their opponents, who had made a bad selection, for there were not three finer men in the British cavalry than Bird (8th Hussars) Cooper (13th Light Dragoons) and Chapman (4th Dragoon Guards). Setting to their business in good old English style they severely punished all their antagonists, who bolted, but not before damaging our men considerably.
Next morning the three cavalry-men recognised their antagonists at the port amongst some of the soldiers. Their faces indeed, would have betrayed them, so battered and bruised as they were. Bird and his companions, savage at the unprovoked attack of the night before, were all for taking further action, but the soldiers fixed bayonets and kept them off.
An officer came up and gave the order to march, but we demanded that he put the six men under arrest. He refused, and struck Bird in the face. Bird then knocked the officer down with a straight left from the shoulder, some of us grabbed the muskets of the soldiers and others ran to a hut and armed themselves with stakes pulled from the roof.
Discretion however, was thought to be the better part of valour when the officer ordered his men to load with ball-cartridges, but on our arrival at Odessa, Bird, Ball and Chapman reported the affair personally to the Governor, who placed the officer and his six men under arrest, and, we were told later, punished them severely..."
Extract from a Daily Chronicle interview, published 15th of September 1904. The interview was given extra significance because it took place during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905:
"Imprisonment in Russia — An interview with William Bird.
A short time ago the London County Council pensioned off Mr William Bird, the chief messenger at its offices in Spring-gardens, not because he was past useful work, but by reason of his having by long service earned his pension; and he retired at last into private life in a cosy villa within the sound of the bugles of the Norwich cavalry barracks.
This is not the only pension that Mr. Bird is now enjoying. Long before he ever heard of the Metropolitan Board of Works, Bill Bird, a young Somerset saddler, joined the 8th Hussars, and accompanied the regiment to the Crimea.
Soon after the conclusion of the war, Sergeant Bird took his Army pension. But civil life was too slow. When he heard a bugle call or watched a regiment march by with band playing, he used to stiffen his back, and feel a "sort of sinking in the stomach," as more than one old soldier has described that sensation, which only a keen old soldier can feel.
One day the "sinking" overcame him, and ex-Sergeant Bird took the Queen's shilling once again, this time in the 1st Life Guards, for which his height — he still, at sixty-eight years of age, stands well over six feet — peculiarly suited him. His three stripes in the 8th Hussars were not taken into account, so he became merely Private — or rather Trooper — Bird; the 1st Life Guards having, strictly speaking, no "Privates".
The other day, in the course of a friendly chat, I asked ex-Sergeant and ex-Trooper Bird what sort of treatment he thought the Japanese who might be taken prisoners could expect from the Russians.
"If they fare as well as I did," he replied, "they won't do badly. I've nothing to say of my experience but what is complimentary to the Russians, anyway, as I found them. I was, as you know, wounded in two places at Balaclava before they took me prisoner, to say nothing of my own horse having his nose cut off, and another horse which I had appropriated in the thick of the fighting being killed.
We, the cavalry prisoners were well treated in hospital. General Liprandi, the commander of the Army of Occupation in the Crimea, was particularly good to us in looking after our comforts, almost as if we were his own men."
"How long were you a prisoner?"
"A few days under a year."
"Where did they keep you?"
"We were marched from the Crimea to Veronesk, a distance of about 600 miles. We were over three months on the road."
"Who were 'we'?"
Eighty-six altogether, some of my regiment, the 8th Hussars, and a few infantrymen and bluejackets. Ours was, of course, only one batch of many. We were escorted by cavalry, very nearly one soldier to one prisoner. But then the column was not entirely made up of British soldiers. There were a lot of Russian political prisoners, who were all manacled."
And at Veronesk?"
We were splendidly treated. A big private mansion was set apart for us. Emperor Nicholas ordered that the British prisoners were to have double the food allowance of the Turks and French, partly, perhaps, because he knew that the British soldier lived better as a rule. We had twenty kopecks (8d.) a day for food only.
A Scotch gentleman named Christopherson, living in Veronesk, raised a fund, to which many Russians subscribed, to supply us with uniform clothing, somewhat resembling the Russian uniform. But we did not mind that. "When in Rome, you must, etc." We felt more like guests than prisoners. They called the muster-roll once a week, as a matter of form, but we had to be indoors by ten o'clock at night.
"And were you?"
"I was one of the few delinquents. Once I was out all night, so next day I was put to punishment work. I had to sweep the snow away in front of our quarters, and fine fun our chaps made of me, and pretending I was a street sweeper and throwing kopecks to me while I worked, the men of the 17th Lancers in particular. The 17th and ours had marched and fought so much side by side that we were often referred to as "the 25th', 17 and 8 making 25, you see."
"And your release?
"We were taken back to Odessa, being driven in carts all the way, and we were freed on October 23rd, 1855. The only unpleasant incident during the whole time was at Odessa, just before our release. But that is a matter of history."
There is no brag about William Bird, so the story is best told by himself on the authority of one of his fellow-prisoners, through whom it originally got into print.
Bird, Cooper of the 13th Light Dragoons, and Chapman of the 4th Dragoon Guards, were attacked by a party of unruly Cossacks, bent on robbery. The three Englishmen used their fists so effectually that the Cossacks fled, but reported the matter to their officer, who sent for the Britishers and commanded his orderly to slap Bird on the face. Bill Bird promptly knocked the officer down. The matter was reported to the Governor, who placed the officer under arrest.
"You received your British pay, I suppose, for the time you were a prisoner." was my last question.
"Oh, yes, after we had gone through the usual court-martial — 1s 4d. a day, my lot amounting to about £30. On the whole we had by no means a bad time out of it, but out of over thirty men of the poor old Light Brigade under twenty survived their captivity.
It was a long and tiring march, and they were terribly wounded, some of them, and surgery, at its best in those days, was miles behind the surgery of today."
In 1897, William Bird wrote a letter to the Editor of The Regiment magazine, pointing out that a previous correspondent, a Mr G.H. Powell, had mistakenly placed 598 John Vahey (the famous "Butcher Jack") in the 13th Light Dragoons when it should have been the 17th Lancers.
Extract from the United Services Gazette, 8th of April 1895:
8th Hussars
Replying to the toast of "Old Comrades" at the Annual Dinner of the Regiment at the Holborn Restaurant on Saturday, Sergeant [sic] Bird who was wounded in the Balaclava Charge, remarked that at a Veterans' Dinner recently there were thirty who alleged that they took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Several of these bogus heroes were investigated and a careful enquiry had authoritatively determined that only a possible sixteen of the rank and file who rode in the famous charge were now alive.
