Commemorations
Member of the Balaclava Commemoration Society in 1877 and 1879.
Signed the Loyal Address to the Queen in 1887. (There is a copy in the "Memoirs" file.)
He received £15 in both 1890 and 1891 from the Light Brigade Relief Fund when he was living at 32, Grove Road, Edinburgh.
His memoirs, Reminiscences of Crimean Campaigning and Russian Imprisonment, by One of the Six Hundred, were privately printed and published in Edinburgh circa 1883.
This is said to have been originally published in the form of articles in a Scottish newspaper. Later editions are also known to be in existence (e.g. the image above is from an edition of 1889 published in Dundee by W. & D. C. Thompson). [Also a 1899 edition including RF's India experiences — see below — more info?]
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There is a reference to his reminiscences in Anthony Cross, In the Lands of the Romanovs::
[Farquharson, Robert Stuart], Reminiscences of Crimean campaigning and Russian imprisonment. By one of 'the six hundred'. Edinburgh: privately printed by Thomas Allan, [1883]. 107pp. [Published as Crimean campaigning and Russian imprisonment. Dundee: W. and D.C. Thomson, 1889. iv+140pp.]
A private in the 4th Light Dragoons, Farquharson (b. 1831) arrived in the Crimea on 18 September 1854, took part in the battle of the Alma on 20 September and, memorably, was in the second line of the charge of the Light Brigade under Paget's command, when he was captured by Cossacks.
He was initially maltreated but subsequently received better treatment from Russian officers. He describes his march into captivity at Voronezh, via Simferopol, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov, his experiences of being billeted on local families, his relations with fellow prisoners, and the beating he received on reaching prison.
In August 1855 he was sent to Odessa and returned eventually to Balaklava on 27 October 1855.
[Source: Anthony Cross, In the Lands of the Romanovs (accessed 1.10.2014).]
Announcement in The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 16 August 1888, that Farquharson's book would shortly be excerpted in a sister paper, the Weekly Independent, as one of a series.
"These Papers contain a graphic and intensely thrilling description of the Battle of Balaclava, by one of the Survivors of the famous Charge of the Light Brigade, Mr Robt Stuart Farquharson, one of Her Majesty's Trumpeters for Scotland, Whose Narrative of his dreary captivity and of the terrible hardships endured by the British Prisoners of War in Russia reads like Romance."
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[PB: Clearly his recollections were still considered good copy that would sell papers more than 30 years after the events he was describing. I have not been able to locate the issue of the Weekly Independent, nor to discover whether other men's accounts were published in the series.]
From the United Services Gazette for the 21st of May 1892:
"On Wednesday (the 18th) in the Royal Hotel, Edinburgh, the Earl of Haddington, on behalf of the subscribers — the Lothian and Berwickshire, Glasgow and Lanarkshire Yeomanry, the 4th Hussars, and the public — presented a cheque for 100 guineas to Mr. Robert Stuart Farquharson, a survivor of the renowned '600'. A second present consisted of a gold watch from Lord Haddington and the Lothian and Berwickshire Yeomanry.
Mr. Farquharson had served 14 years in the 4th Light Dragoons, afterwards joining the Lothian and Berwickshire Yeomanry, with which corps he has since been connected. At the time he was not in the best of health, and could only move with difficulty. The gifts were suitably acknowledged by the recipient."