Born at Maidstone, Kent.
Enlisted at London on the 17th of April 1854.
Age: 20.
Height: 5' 7".
Trade: Clerk.
Features: Fresh complexion. Grey eyes. Brown hair.
Joined the regiment in the Crimea on the 29th of April 1855.
Embarked for India from Cork aboard the S.S. "Great Britain " on the 8th of October 1857.
The musters for July-September 1858 show no particular service movement during the whole of the period.
Served in action against the rebels at Zeerapore on the 29th of December 1858 and at Baroda on the 1st of January 1859.
From Private to Corporal: 22nd of May 1861.
"In confinement", 21st-22nd of October 1863. Tried by a Regimental Court-martial for "being drunk" and reduced to Private. He was also imprisoned from the 23rd-26th of October 1863.
Discharged, "invalided", from Colchester on the 8th of August 1865:
"Unfit for further service. Total blindness of left eye — caused by syphilis. He claims this came on in India, but at that time there were no reports of opthalmic disorders, either in the Regiment or on the station. Disease has been aggravated by vice and intemperance."
Served 11 years 90 days.
In Turkey and the Crimea: 1 yearIn India: 7 years 1 month.
Conduct and character: "good".
In possession of two Good Conduct badges.
Once entered in the Regimental Defaulter's book. Once tried by Court-martial.
Granted a pension of 8d. per day for two years.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasp for Sebastopol, and the Turkish medal.
Mutiny medal without clasp.
(See record of 692 John Paine for details of all the Crimean medals known to be in existence- and which could easily be substituted as such from that awarded to 1215 Joseph Paine, but only with a certainty that the two medals were named identically.)
To live at No. 8 Seaton Street, Southend on discharge, but he was in the Birmingham District in 1866.
The 1881 Census Returns show a man "Joseph Payne" as living at "The Green Man", No. 36 Duke Street, Bedford, a Publican, aged 46, born at Mewing Green, Kent, with his wife, Mary, aged 46, born at Walton-on-Trent, Derby and one daughter Harriet aged 18, born at Maidstone.
[RM: The GRO registered the death of a "Joseph Payne", aged 50, in the Bedford registration district in the December quarter of 1888.]
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