John Eccleshall sergeant maj. 17th Lancers died 1860

[expat66]

Rather excited to find this extract from the Birmingham Journal of 1860 ( on British Newspaper Archive website)
This would be my 2x great grand uncle, who I had very little info. on at all
.. although I do have quite a bit on his father who was the lodgekeeper at Edgbaston reservoir.

This John Eccleshall would have been born abt. 1825. I believe he was christened in 1829 Smethwick along with 3 brothers and a sister.
I have not been able to find 1841 census for the family but I do know that George Eccleshall was the lodgekkeper from the year it was built in 1829 ( shows up in rate books)
I have the 1851 census but the son John does not show up there .... so was he already in the army then?

Now where can I go to find out more about him? .... I have tried FMP and 'Ancestry' but couldn't find anything.
So definitely stuck now .... any help greatly appreciated!

Thankyou
Expat

[expat66]

I have received help from some other researchers and now have a bit more on John.

His Reg. No. was 769, he was with the 17th Lancers and was a hospital sergeant
He enlisted in Birmingham in 1843 aged 18 and was in the Crimea.
He was eligible for the Crimea medal with 4 clasps:- Alma, Balaklava, Sevastapol and Inkerman. Also the Turkish medal.
While the Lancers were in Portobello Barracks, Dublin in 1856 (back from the Crimea) he was witness to the marriage of another soldier .. Henry Batcock
In 1857 he was posted to India on the SS Great Britain... the Indian Mutiny was over by the time he got there.

Apparently the muster rolls for 1860 are missing so there is some confusion over whether he died onboard the Belgravia on it's return to England or whether he left the ship 'invalided'. There is a possible death registration for that year for a John Eccleshall ... I have ordered a copy certificate to see if it is the right man.

I don't know whether there will be any more information 'out there' now on John .. this may be the sum of it ... but I am interested to find out more about what his role as hospital sergeant might have been.
Would he have been in a field hospital at the various battles listed as clasps? and is there any info. on what such hospitals would have been like?

If anyone can add any more I would be very interested
Thankyou
Expat

[MarkCDodd]

He would have been working beside Florence Nightingale and witness to her reforms including pre-fabricated hospitals shipped from the U.K.

It is estimated that ten times the soldiers died from disease than war wounds.

There have been some modern BBC documentaries that question the effectiveness of Florence during the Crimean war and claim she was not aware of bad sanitation being the cause of most deaths.

They claim that she blamed over work, stress and bad nutrition.

No matter what, if you investigate Florence Nightingale you will get graphic descriptions of the hospitals and the horrendous death rates involved.

[MarkCDodd]

John is not in the official Armed Forces Death Registry.