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

Amended 14.5.2011. Minor edits 16.2.14, 13.4.14. New info added 27.4.15.

1422, Private Joseph George DOUGHTON — 13th Light Dragoons

Also recorded as "Dowtin", and "Douglas".

Birth & early life

Born at Aston, Hertfordshire, c.1833.

1841 Census

Aston, Herts

David Dowtin [sic], 50, Agricultural Labourer.

Ann Dowtin, 50.

Joseph Dowtin, 9.

Mary Dowtin.

Enlistment

Enlisted at Westminster on the 21st of December 1850.

Age: 19 [but he may have been 17 or 18].

Height: 5' 8".

Trade: Miner.

Features: Fair complexion. Hazel eyes. Brown hair.

Service

1851 Census

Piershill Barracks, Leith.

Joseph Doughton, 20, Private soldier, born Flatford (?).

[CP: there is no reference to the regiment but the 13th were indeed here at this time.]

[PB: I have not found a "Flatford" in Hertfordshire. It is not possible to view the Scottish returns online, and it is possible the transcription is erroneous.]

Absent from the 15th of October 1851, shown as a deserter from the 16th of December 1851, and rejoined the regiment on the 13th of March 1852. Tried by a District Court-martial on the 29th of March for "desertion and losing his necessaries" and sentenced to 120 days' imprisonment, with hard labour, and to be marked with the letter "D". He was released on the 26th of July 1852.

Embarked for the Crimea aboard the H.T. "Culloden" on the 10th of May 1854.

Seriously wounded in action at Balaclava, and his horse was shot under him. When discharged, in 1855, he was described as "Disabled from wound of right elbow from gun-shot fracture."

In the official casualty list he was wrongly named as "Joseph Douglas".

Sent to Scutari from the hospital at Balaclava aboard the "Australia" and was at Scutari from the 23rd of November 1854. He was later invalided to England on the 11th of January 1855.

At Fort Pitt, Chatham, Invalid Depot [? from the 11th of March 1855 until the 30th of June], when he was sent "on furlo, pending discharge", to Coventry.



 Queen Victoria's First Visit to her Wounded Soldiers, 1855, Jerry Barrett (first exhibited 1856). Click to enlarge.
(Click on image to enlarge)

Joseph Doughton was among the wounded soldiers seen by Queen Victoria on her visit to Brompton Barracks, Chatham, 3rd of March 1855.

Discharge & pension

He was finally discharged from the Chatham Invalid Depot on the 16th of October 1855 as "Disabled from wound of right elbow from gun-shot fracture."

[PB: His WO97 papers say he was discharged "having been found unfit for further Military Service", and his chracter and conduct "have been on the whole good".]

Served 4 years, to count.

Conduct and character: "Indifferent". Not in possession of any Good Conduct badges.

He was granted a pension of 8d. per day.

Medals

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

Further detailed medal information archived.

Commemorations

Life after service

Joseph Doughton is known to have moved around a lot after his discharge, including living in Bury, Isle of Man (1.5.1857), Cambridge (1.7.1859), and the No. 2 London Pension District. By 1861 he had married and become a "Victualler" in Sawston, Cambridgeshire.

His memoir, Narrative of Joseph Doughton, late of Her Majesty's 13th Light Dragoons, one of the heroes wounded at Balaclava in the Gallant Cavalry Charge, was published in Birmingham in 1856. (There is a copy and transcription in the "Memoirs" file.)



(Click on image to enlarge)

His Narrative begins:

Gentle Reader

The various events which led to the late War with Russia, have become matters of history, and are too well known, and have been too often discussed by all persons, to need mention. The possession of the Crimea and its resources, and the construction of a powerful Maritime Fortress in the magnificent Harbour of Sebastopol, were prominent features in that vast scheme of policy by which the genius of the Czar Peter and his successors transformed Muscovy into the Russian Empire, and which ultimately they hoped, by commanding the domination of the Black Sea and its coasts, would be the means of adding some portions of Western Europe to the Empire.

When it was to be considered where the most severe and decisive blow against Russia could be aimed: it became evident that the Crimea was the spot, and that a blow struck home at Sebastopol, together with the consequent destruction of the Emperor's fleet, must at once paralyse, if not annihilate those means of external aggression in the East, against which we found ourselves more particularly arranged in arms...

Marriage

PB: Joseph George Doughton, 26, married Caroline Dickinson on the 10th of July 1858 in Hertford, England. Her father was named as John Dickinson.

Marriage registered

Joseph George Doughton to Caroline Dickinson, September Quarter 1858, Royston.

Births registered

Emily Helena Doughton, September Quarter 1859, Royston.

Fanny Caroline Doughton, June Quarter 1861, Linton.

Walter Doughton, June Quarter 1864, Linton.

John Charles Doughton, June Quarter 1867, Linton.

[CP: Note that John Charles was born two years after Joseph Doughton's death.]

1861 Census

High Street, Sawston.

Joseph G Doughton, 29, Chelsea Pensioner & Victualler, born [presumably Onslow St Audrey's, Hatfield], Herts.

Caroline Doughton, 28, Victualler wife, born Buckland, Herts.

Emily H. Doughton, 1, born Buckland.

Death & burial

Death registered

Joseph George Doughton, March Quarter 1865, Linton, Cambridgeshire.

Died (according to the Pension Books) on the 20th of March 1865 in the No 2 London Pension District.

The death certificate of Joseph George Doughton shows that he died on the 20th of March 1865 at Sawston, Cambridgeshire [PB: FreeBMD appears to say Linton]. He was 33 years of age, and a publican, the cause of death being "Bright's Disease of the Kidneys". A Susan Hack (who had to make her mark) was present at, and the informant of, his the death . (There is a copy in the "Certificates" file.)

Further information

1871 Census

Grey Hound Inn, Sawston.

Caroline Doughton, 39, widow, Innkeeper, born Buckland.

Emily, 11; Fanny, 10; Walter, 7; John Charles, 3.

Marriage registered

Caroline Doughton [widow] to John Harvey Moulton, December Quarter 1871, Linton.

1881 Census

Mt Pleasant, High Street, Sawston.

John Harvey Moulton, 53, Paper maker, born Sawston.

Caroline Moulton, 50, born Herts.

Charles Doughton, 50, born Sawston.

Oliver Moulton, 4 , born Decenber Quarter 1876, Sawston.

Fred Moulton, 8, born March Quarter 1873, born Sawston.

One lodger is also shown.

1891 Census

Mount Pleasant, High Street, Sawston.

John H Moulton, 63, paper maker, born Sawston.

Caroline Moulton, 58.

Emily Doughton, 29.

Oliver Moulton, 14

Four lodgers are also shown.

Death registered

John Hervey (sic) Moulton, aged 65 years, March Quarter 1893, Linton.

1901 Census

Mt Pleasant, Sawston.

Caroline Moulton, 68, Widow, Landlady, born Buckland.

Two boarders are also shown.

Death registered

Caroline Moulton, aged 78 years, June Quarter 1910, Farnham.

In 1983 the vicar of St. Mary's, Sawston,c published a Surname Index (which he had compiled over a twenty-five-year period) of all those whose living in the village whose names appeared in the parish records for one reason or another.

The name "Doughton" appeared for the first time following the baptism of Caroline Fanny, who was baptised on the 28th of July 1861, the daughter of Joseph George and Caroline Doughton. This was followed by the baptism of a son, Walter, on the 19th of June 1864, and the burial of Joseph George Doughton, on the 28th of March 1865. The next entry is that forJohn Charles, son of Caroline Doughton, Publican, on the 17th of July 1867 [sic]. A local Directory for 1869 shows her as the licensee of "The Greyhound' public house, probably the one her husband held (although there were three others in the village) but no details for the period are available.

The next available Directory, that for 1871, shows a change of tenant. Whether the family remained in the village for any length of time after this is not clear, although the last entry of all shows the marriage of Caroline Fanny to William Gurton Greenwood, a schoolmaster of Newington, on the 31st of July 1886.

In the same survey the vicar recorded the name details on all the identifiable gravestones in the churchyard (and their location on a plan) but nothing is shown for Joseph Doughton. There were a number of stones which were too worn to be readable and his could have been one of these, if indeed a headstone was ever erected.

References & acknowledgements

Registration of marriages and deaths, and Census information for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 & 1901, kindly provided by Chris Poole.

We are very grateful to Rowan Gibbs for contacting the EJBA in April 2015. While researching Hamilton's Grand Moving Panorama of the War with Russia he had come across a number of references to Joseph Doughton in 1855-6. The information he provided alerted us to the rich seam of information in contemporary local newspapers both about Doughton's life and the several travelling Crimean war exhibitions that were criss-crossing Britain at this time.


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