Born at Clouzibou, near Colcott, Co. Down.
[RM: See details of his medal in 2006 below of his alleged birth place and date.]
Enlisted at Dublin on the 16th of June 1847.
Age: 20.
Height: 5' 8".
Trade: Labourer.
Features: Fair complexion. Grey eyes, Light brown hair.
From Private to Corporal: 31st of January 1852.
Wounded in action at Balaclava.
Reduced to Private "for being drunk on Guard," by a District Court-martial on the 7th of December 1854.
From Private to Corporal: 31st of January 1855.
Corporal to Sergeant 20th of March 1856.
Discharged "invalided" from Dublin on the 27th of November 1856, with the comment:
"This man is permanently incapacitated from performing the duties of a soldier from Phthisis Pulmondis. He has been under treatment from April last for a cough. His disease is attributable to a cold caught in the Crimea and is not aggravated by vice or intemperance."
Served 9 years 236 days.
In Turkey and the Crimea: 2 years.
Aged 29 years 4 months on discharge.
Awarded a pension of 7d. per day for a period of two years.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman, and Sebastopol, and the Turkish medal.
Died in the No. 1 West London Pension District on the 15th of April 1857
The date of death would confirm that it was not the "John Pyne" who was presumed to have been on the 1879 membership list of the Balaclava Commemoration Society by Lummis and Wynne. The GRO records also show a man of this name as dying in the Chelsea District during the April-June quarter of 1857. No age at death is shown.
From his death certificate he died at Millman Cottage, Millman Row, in the parish of St.Luke's Chelsea, from "Phthisis (9 months ) and Haemoptysis." aged 29 years, his occupation being that of a Private Soldier, 17th Lancers. A John Class, of the same address, was present at his death. (See copy of this in the 17th Lancers "Certificates" file.)
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