Born at Rushton, Northamptonshire, one of six children, and baptised in the Church of All Saints and St. Peter, on the 29th of June 1828 as James Ennis Perkins, the son of Richard Perkins, a Labourer, and his wife, Mary.
His father had married Mary Ann Norris in the same chuch on the 10th of February 1817, she dying at Rushton on the 29th of January 1830, aged 39 years, and his father on the 6th of April 1839, aged 54 years, both being buried in Rushton churchyard.
Enlisted at Coventry on the 1st of May 1846.
Age: 18.
Height: 5' 6".
Trade: Labourer.
Tried by a District Court-martial at Portsmouth on the 19th of January 1853 for "Disobedience of orders." Was sentenced to 14 days imprisonment, with hard labour.
At Scutari from the 13th of December 1854 — 11th of May 1855, and where he was attached to the Ambulance Corps.
Invalided to England on the 31st of August 1855.
From Private to Corporal: 15th of January 1856.
Reduced to Private by a Regimental Court-martial on the 18th of July 1857 for being "Drunk on duty."
Embarked for India from Cork aboard the S.S. "Great Britain" on the 8th of October 1857.
The musters for July-September of 1858 show him as being "On Field Service" during the whole of this period.
Served in the field at Rajghur and Mungrowlee with Captain William Gordon.
Died at Secunderbad, India, on the 30th of August 1860.
Died at Secunderbad, India, on the 30th of August 1860.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman, Sebastopol, and the Turkish medal.
Mutiny medal without clasp.
W0/25/321 states, "Crimean medal with four bars and T.C. medal sent to next of kin." There is no mention of the Mutiny medal and this may never have been claimed. The medal roll on which the latter appears was dated the 28th of October 1862.
The India Office records show him as dying from "Acute hepatitis" at Secunderbad on the 30th of August 1860, aged 32 years. He was buried on the 31st of August by the Revd. J.D. Ostrahan. Joint Chaplain.
Next of kin: Brother, Thomas Rowell Perkins, living in Rushton, Northants.
More information came in 2001 from a great-granddaughter of Thomas Rowell Perkins, shown as his next of kin (the greater family still living at Rushton and has been so since the 1500s) that a family story believes that James Perkins ran away from home to join the Army and a copy of a letter in family possession sent by a member of the Perkins family, asked to be allowed to "buy his son out of the Army." (The dating of this letter in August of 1839 and James Perkins not enlisting until May of 1846 at the age of 18 shows that it could not have related to him.)
She also states that James Perkins had arranged for a headstone for his parents to be erected in Rushton churchyard. This bears the inscription:
In memory of
Richard Perkins, who died April 6 1839.
Aged 54 years
Also, Mary Ann Perkins, wife of the above,
who died Jan 29 1830
Aged 39 years
This stone was erected by James Ennis Perkins, son of the above, of the 17th Lancers, who died at Secunderbad, E. Indies, Aug, 30. 1860, aged 30 years. [Verses follow.]
(There is a copy of the letter and photographs of the erected gravestone in the 17th Lancer files.)
His dying so long after his parents could only mean that he had left sufficient money for this to be done. A check of the amount in his "credits" however shows only the sum of 53 rupees, 15 annas in Indian money (equivalent in English money to £5/16/2d.) and hardly enough to have paid for such a stone. He had not left a will with the regiment.
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