In search of more service papers

Again another recent purchase and I have hit a dead end.

Zulu medal to 1678 Sergeant William Seaman 90th foot Wounded Ulundi and cannot find any service papers online.

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks Matt

Hi Matt

Welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately not all service records can be found, you have listed two that can not be found yet.

Andy

Hi Andy

Thanks, joined a while ago but just haven’t posted anything. I note your avatar being 17th Lancers badge. I have also been researching a Zulu medal I have to a 1969 Henry Skinner.

The interesting thing about this medal is that I can confirm him as a charger at Ulundi as he wrote a letter to Colonel M, G NEELD in consequence to the 50th anniversary reunion dinner held at the Great Central Hotel on the 6th July 1929. The letter describes Henry having seen the news about the dinner in the News of the world paper and mentioned that he regretted not being able to be present.

He describes that he was present in the march from Aldershot to Preston and was at the “Blackburn Riots” and goes on to talk about his involvement in the battle of Ulundi by saying he was in H Troop under Captain E V Wyatt Edgell’s troop.

He remembers Edgell being shot and Pte, Jones & Farrier Sergeant Taylor losing their lives on the battle field that day, he then states he came home to Canterbury, Kent from South Africa when the regiment went to India. He was then a “Coachman” for Captain Clarke and also to Surgeon Major O’Larie. He was then married off the strength of the army, but was recalled and transferred to the 4th Dragoon Guards and went to Egypt.

Finally Henry confirms that he was in possession of the South Africa (Zulu medal) with clasp and also the Egyptian medal with “Tel El Kebir” clasp and star and that he was 71! last March.

His letter being posted from the Post Office at Hapton, Near Burnley.

Henry was back in England about 1884, he was finally discharged on the 5th of December 1888 and on the 6th of March 1923 he received a pension of 1 shilling per week for life from the Royal Hospital of Chelsea.

I purchased it from DNW last year and was not listed with any research at all. The reprinted letter appears in Roy Duttons medal roll book.

Hi Matt

Yes I am a big 17th Lancers fan.

Thank you for sharing the information you have. This is what I have on Skinner.

HENRY CHARLES SKINNER AND FAMILY
One further aspect of the family story is that Henry Charles ran away to sea as a boy and served one trip on the Cutty Sark as a cabin boy. The Cutty Sark was built at Dumbarton and launched in 1869. From 1870-77 it sailed in the China tea trade but we have no documentary evidence to confirm this connection with Henry Charles.
At the age of 18 Henry Charles enlisted in the Army on 6 December 1876 as a private in the 17th Lancers. He was sent to Africa to fight in the Zulu War. He took part in the battle of Ulundi and was a member of the patrol that found the body of the Prince Imperial, son of Napoleon III, after he had been killed on 1 June 1879. At the end of the Zulu war Henry Charles returned to England and was stationed at the barracks in Canterbury. It was there that he met his wife-to-be Mary Ann Haslop Pool.
Mary Ann was the illegitimate daughter of Maria Pool, a glover, who lived in North Lane, Canterbury with her mother, Elizabeth and an older daughter (presumably also illegitimate) called Martha who was 15 when Mary Ann was born. No father was identified on the birth certificate but I have always thought that her third name "Haslop" might be a clue to her parentage. Mary Ann was semi-illiterate (in later years she could read but never learnt to write) and this third name had become Astelope by the time she married -presumably the registrar's best guess. She also gave her father as Thomas Pool (deceased), maybe as a face-saving exercise. There is no evidence of a Thomas Pool other than Maria's brother, who was alive at the time of Mary Ann's wedding. Mary Ann was a cripple and wore a built-up shoe to aid walking. She also had a lazy eye.
Henry Charles (23) and Mary Ann (22) were married at the Registry Office in Canterbury on 20 March 1881. The witnesses were Alfred Allen, a Lieutenant in 2/3 Foot and a Jane Baker, probably a friend or neighbour of Mary Ann.
Because of the proximity of the date of the wedding to the census in that year (3 April) Henry Charles had the dubious honour of being enumerated twice! He appears (aged 22) with Mary Anne at their accommodation at 41 North Lane and at the Barracks (aged 24) -presumably the barracks enumeration was performed from the personnel lists.
After completing his tour of duty Henry Charles automatically entered the Army Reserve and was later called up into the 4th Dragoon Guards to serve in the battle of Tel-el-Kebir under Sir Garnet Wolseley in 1882. While in Egypt he was temporarily blinded by sunstroke. He also served at Matabele and later in the Boer War but in the intervening years the children were born. His war medals included the Zulu Medal and Clasp and the Egyptian and Khedive Star .
The first child was Henry, born in 1883. Then came Ethel Maud in 1885, Fanny Eliabeth in 1887, George in 1890 and finally Mabel Maria in 1891.
After Army service Henry Charles worked on the railways, first as a guard and then as crossing keeper at Belvedere. The family lived in the Crossing House in Picardy Manorway and appear in the local directories of 1909 and 1912. This was young George's introduction to Belvedere, where he was to spend most of his life.
By 1914 Henry Charles had been transferred to Bellingham Station, near Catford, where he was a foreman. The family lived first at 82B Farley Road, Catford near Mountsfield Park, where George's wedding photograph was taken, and then moved to 118 Silvermere Road where they lived the rest of their days. Apparently the main reason for the move was to get away from the public house on the corner of Ringstead Road which was becoming a bad influence.
After leaving the railway, Henry Charles worked as a labourer in the hay-pressing establishment at Woolwich Dockyard for four years before finally retiring in February 1920.
He died in Lewisham Hospital on 6 May 1940 after suffering a stroke at the age of 82. Mary Ann survived him for a further five years and died on 24 June 1945 at the age of 86. Both are interred in Hither Green Cemetery.

Andy

Thanks Andy

That’s great, thank you for the extra information. It’s good that both my info and yours tally up. Strange though that he would send a letter from up north!

Cheers Matt

Matt, Andy,

My name is Tom and I’m a Captain in the First Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Henry Charles Skinner was my Great Great Grandfather.


Thank you both very much indeed for the information below, it’s more than I have ever been able to glean. The volume of information is incredible- Henry’s life has long been the subject of much speculation in my family. My Grandfather used to tell me stories of Henry’s ‘way with horses’ when everything was still horse-drawn in London as well as his unwillingness to leave the house without first polishing his shoes, which he would do again before going out on a another errand. Different times. If you would be willing to share any of the original research/ anything else you have on him I would be hugely grateful, I can’t believe i have managed to stumble upon your research with this level of detail already!


Matt- it’s fantastic to know that his medal(s) are in safe hands. I appreciate that this forum probably isn’t for this, but I think an exception could probably be made in this case; I would very much like to purchase the medal(s) from you so that they may sit with the rest of my family’s medals (including my own). If you would be willing to part with them, please let me know!

Thank you both again!

Tom