LIVES OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
The E.J. Boys Archive
Added 5th June 2012. Info and photographs added 4.6.17.
Major Augustus SALTREN WILLETT - 17th Lancers
Birth & early life
Born c. December 1817, the son of John Saltren Willett, Esq., of Petticombe, Monkleigh, North Devon, and 21, Upper Grosvenor Street, London.
Petticombe Manor
[Image source: "Artwork by Christina Smith created from an original colour photo taken by the son of the house owners. Shared (resized from the master) with their permission with the help of David Hogan." [http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artmay12/dw-fwmills.html]
(Click on image to enlarge)
He had a brother, Captain John Saltren Willett of the Royal Artillery, who also served in the Crimea.
[PB: Note also the memorial to Lieut-Colonel Archibald Saltren-Willett, also of the Royal Artillery, below. He too was from Petticombe. A nephew?]
Studied at Westminster School.
Augustus Willett was not married.
D.H. Parry [The Death or Glory Boys: The Story of the 17th Lancers 1759-1903 (1903), p.223] refers to him as being the uncle of Archibald "Cleveland", 17th Lancers (see his record) but it is more likely that they were cousins, all known sources purporting to show that fathers of each as being brothers.
[PB, May 2017: I have been unable to find sources to establish their exact relationship. Monkleigh is about 7 miles from Clevland's home, Tapely Park, Instow.]
Service
Augustus Willett entered the Army as a Gentleman cadet from Sandhurst, at which he had been a student from the 10th of July 1833 [i.e. from the age of about 16].
Cornet in the 17th Lancers: 9th of December 1836.
Lieutenant, 17th Lancers: 31st of December 1839.
Captain, 17th Lancers: 14th of June 1842.
Major, 17th Lancers: 28th of May 1852.
Assumed the command of the regiment on the 21st of September 1854.
Died at Balaclava, "of cholera", on the 22nd of October 1854.
Medals
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma and Sebastopol, and the Turkish Medal.
Campaign service
Major Willett served the Eastern campaign up to the 22nd of October 1854, including the battle of the Alma and the Siege of Sebastopol. (Medal and Clasps and the Turkish medal.)
His Crimean medal, with the clasp for Alma only, appeared in a Seaby's list for February of 1978.
Commemorations
(Click on image to enlarge)
Westminster School's Crimea and Indian Mutiny Memorial, outside Westminster Abbey.
There is a memorial to him at St George's Church, Monkleigh, Torridge, Devon: http://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/55698.
Memorial to Augustus Willett, St George's Church, Monkleigh. Wall to the north of the altar, one of a number to Saltren Willetts.
[Image source: Photograph, PB, June 2017.]
(Click on image to enlarge)
Current Location: North side of altar, grey marble tablet. On it is a slightly smaller white tablet. St George's Church, Monkleigh, Torridge, Devon.
Description: Grey Marble Tablet on White Tablet The inscription is raised on a square over the surrounding marble.
Inscription: SACRED TO THE MEMORY/ OF/ AUGUSTUS SALTREN WILLETT/ ELDEST SON OF/ JOHN SALTREN WILLETT,/ OF PETTICOMBE IN THIS PARISH/ MAJOR OF THE 17th LANCERS/ WITH WHICH REGIMENT HE SERVED/ AT THE BATTLE OF ALMA/ AND DIED OF CHOLERA IN THE CRIMEA/ OCTOBER 22nd 1854/ AGED 57 YEARS.
St George's, Monkleigh, near Bideford, Devon.
[Image source: Photograph, PB, June 2017.]
(Click on image to enlarge)
Death & burial
Died at Balaclava, "of cholera", on the 22nd of October 1854.
Several different stories exist as to the manner of his death. Robert Portal, 4th Light Dragoons, stated in one of his letters home that:
"I knew him very well indeed... He was taken ill at eleven o'clock at Night and died the following day at Noon. We lay the cause of his illness and death to those who chose to keep us out without cloaks that night."
Temple Godman of the 5th Dragoon Guards:
"I have just heard that Major Willett of the 17th Lancers died today from cholera. I believe there are not many cases of it now but he had diarrhoea for some days which he could not get rid of, and the other night finished him off."
1117 James Wightman of the 17th Lancers, however, tells it differently. After referring to Major Willett as a good soldier, but a tyrant, he wrote in his "Memoirs":
"The cavalry had stood to their horses all night on the 21st of October 1854, following the alarm of an attack, but he would allow neither officer nor man of his regiment to "cloak-up" and to do him justice, he did not do so himself. This wanton and needless exposure - the other regiments were comfortably cloaked - wrought his own death. His own very first victim. He was a corpse before sun-down of the following day."
Our colonel having been sent on board ship after the battle of the Alma, Major Willett had command until the 22d ult., when he had a sudden attack of cholera, brought on by being exposed the night before while on outlying picket duty with the remainder of the cavalry, and he died after about twelve hours' sickness.
From Rootschat.
Major Augustus Saltren Willett was a Devonshire man - the eldest son of John Saltren Willet Esq. of Petticombe, Monkleigh, North Devon.
In the last of Lieutenant John Henry Thomson's letters dated October 23rd - two days before he fell - he wrote, "I have another melancholy bit of news to close this letter with - the awfully sudden death of our poor Major from cholera in eleven hours - we were going to bury him this morning"
* John Henry Thomson Lieutenant 17th Lancers was killed by a round shot while taking part with his regiment in the heroic Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, 25th October, 1854.
[PB: Major Willett's death led to William Morris, another Devon-man, taking command of the 17th Lancers during the Charge. Incidentally, who was Major Willett replacing - who was the Colonel?]
Robert Portal:
"The number of wounds and deaths among the officers is too horrid to think of. Poor Morris, who joined here a fortnight ago, having just recovered from his cholera attack at Varna, and who just succeeded to the command of the 17th Lancers in consequence of the sudden death by cholera of Major Willett, was shot in the head. I passed him lying on the ground when we were in full gallop, but of course could do nothing. He was found and brought in, and was not quite dead, but quite out of his mind."
From A Memoir of LIEUT-COLONEL WILLIAM MORRIS, published by R. White-Thomson in 1903:
While engaged at Varna in the duties of his office he was taken ill with cholera, so was unable to cross with the Army to the Crimea in September, but had recovered sufficiently to join the Headquarter Staff in October, before Sebastopol.
Very soon after his arrival, he relinquished his Staff appointment to take command of the 17th Lancers, Major Saltren Willett the Senior Officer present with the Regiment, having died with cholera.
(Major Augustus Saltren Willett was also a Devonshire man - the eldest son of John Saltren Willett Esq. of Petticombe, Monkleigh, North Devon. In the last of Lieutenant John Henry Thompson's letters dated October 23rd - two days before he fell - he wrote, "I have another melancholy bit of news to close this letter with - the awfully sudden death of our poor Major from cholera in eleven hours, we were going to bury him this morning."
A kinsman of Major Saltren Willett, Archibald Cleveland, of Tapeley Park, Instow, Devon, was also in the 17th Lancers. He was appointed to the Regiment in 1852 as Cornet, rode unwounded through the Balaklava Charge but was killed at Inkerman on November the 5th).
Thus it happened that he led the 17th into action on the 25th October.
[PB: I originally asked whether Major Willett could be the "uncle" Archibald Clevland was writing to the day after the Charge - in which case, this assumes a) he would not have known of Willett's death a few days before, and b) the term "uncle" was being applied loosely to an older close kinsman. However, there was at least one other person that fitted, Willett's brother ?, in the Royal Engineers?. It certainly fits with the idea that the recipient knew about military matters, hence required no elaboration or explanation. Was ASW already dead when AC wrote? How did the letter become published? NB Saltren Willett was the family name before AC's father adopted the name Clevland. But surely "Augustus" was AC's father's name? (which supports the view they were cousins, not brothers.) May be hard to follow up, though - Ancestry.com and thepeerage.com appear to have very little info on the Clevlands or the Saltren Willetts. Other sources?]
