Born in the parish of St. Mary's, Dublin, c.1810.
Enlisted at Dublin on the 4th of December 1829.
Age: 19.
Height: 5' 10".
Trade: Labourer.
Features: Fresh complexion. Grey eyes. Dk. brown hair.
From Private to Corporal: 28th of October 1840.
Tried by a Regimental Court-martial on the 30th of October 1844 for "having been drunk on the line of march". Sentenced to be reduced to Private and imprisoned for 20 days.
The casualty list which appeared in the London Gazette for Balaclava shows him as being "slightly wounded". Lummis and Wynn record him as such, but state: "time and place unknown". Although not conclusive, it must be considered therefore that he must have ridden in the Charge.
Next of kin (in 1854): Wife, Anne Fegan (to whom he sent money from the Crimea), living in Kingston, Surrey.
From Private to Corporal: 11th of December 1854.
At Scutari General Hospital from the 13th of January 1855 and invalided to England aboard the "Arabia" on the 16th of February 1855.
On "sick furlo pending discharge", from Chatham Invalid Depot on the 31st of March 1855.
Discharged from Chatham Invalid Depot on the 27th of November 1855, and where he had been reduced to Private on the 9th of June:
"To Out-Pension. Disabled by rheumatic pains and slight — (word not clear) from contusion of a spent cannon-shot at Balaclava."
A later medical examination states:
"Says he was struck on the left foot by a spent cannon-shot, and he walks a little lame, but there is no mark or swelling whatsoever."
Aged 45 years on discharge.
Served 25 years 270 days.
Conduct and character: "a good soldier."
In possession of two Good Conduct badges.
Granted a pension of 1/6d. per day.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman, Sebastopol, and the Turkish medal.
Letter from the Horse Guards, dated the 30th of June 1857 to the Officer Commanding the 17th Lancers, Dublin:
"Sir, — I am directed by the General Commanding-in-Chief to refer to you the enclosed Memorial from Patrick Fegan, late a Corporal of the 17th Lancers and request that you will afford to me any information you have in your power to give relative to this man's service and his claim to the French War Medal..."
(Nothing further on this can be found.)
He said he intended to reside in Liverpool after discharge, but he was living in the Salop Pension District in 1858 and died there on the 16th of April 1860.
Death registration
Patrick Fegan is shown in the GRO records as dying at Oswestry during the April-June quarter of 1860.
Extract from an unknown local newspaper of the period:
"Death — Corporal Patrick Charles Fegan. late 17th Lancers. Died April 16th 1860 at Coney Green, Oswestry. Late a Policeman on the Oswestry — Newtown Railway."
Died of "natural causes" and was buried in the churchyard of Oswestry Parish Church (top left section, near Oswestry Old School). The whole section is now grassed over, and any once erected stones laid flat.
(See photograph of his grave area, positioned at far left of the picture and immediately in front of the stone wall, in the 17th Lancer file.)