Goto David L.Milner's List of Sussex Men at Waterloo

 

 

Sussex Men at Waterloo

 

A list of the Officers of the 35th Regiment of Foot (2nd Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment) included in the muster roll after the Battle of Waterloo, and some Sussex men who were in that Regiment.

 

" Ah Jeles tiens done, ces Anglais!" - "I have them at last, these English! " was - the exclamation of Napoleon early in the morning of June 18, 1815, but in the evening at dusk, a little girl awakened from sleep by the noise of horses' hoofs in the Bois de Planchenuit whither she had gone earlier in the day, being curious to see what was going on, saw a troop of cavalry, headed by a man of short stature mounted on a grey horse.

 

He was riding slowly as if in a dream, looking straight ahead and paying no heed to what went on about him. The little girl reached her home and learnt that the rider whom she had seen was Napoleon.

 

" I stood at our door and served out water to the ' beaux soldats.' Afterwards I followed them to Waterloo. In the evening we heard the booming of great cannon, and from the windows I could see the clouds of smoke rising into the air like trees. All night long we heard the tramp of silent men and the creaking. stumbling guns passing our doors. When I looked out next morning I saw wounded men lying by the roadside. " Not far off soldiers were digging trenches in our fields to bury the dead. There were so many of them - so many of them." relates the same child, then an aged widow, covering her face with her hands. " I saw one woman of Gotarville cut off the fingers of a Prussian officer sorely hurt but still living to secure the jewelled rings that he wore." " We did not like the English or the Prussians. Poor Napoleon! "

 

A second witness of this great battle was another little girl who. as an old woman living just across the Sussex border in Kent bore the Sussex name of Moon. She died in 1903 and remembered riding in a wagon over the field on the evening of June 18, 1815. Her father was a colour-sergeant, who died of wounds received at Waterloo, She, also, could recollect the battle of Quatre Bras.

 

The colonel-in-chief of the Sussex Regiment was Charles, 4th Duke of Richmond, K.G. He was present at Waterloo as a spectator during the first half of the engagement. In the Waterloo Journal, General Mercer records having seen. " a fine tall upright old gentleman, in plain clothes, followed by two young ones, come across our front at a gallop from the Brussels road." and was surprised to see them " press forward to so hot a fight." Wellington finally implored the Duke to retire to Brussels, but he did not beat a retreat until the battle was half over.

 

His son. Lord William Lennox, then a boy of 15 and a cornet in the Horse Guards, had by an accident a few days before the battle fractured his right arm and had the sight of one of his eyes destroyed. He left his sick bed at Brussels to follow his father and another brother to the field of battle.

 

 

Muster Roll

 

 

Lieut.-Colonel

Sir George H. F. Berkeley, K.C.B. (wounded).

 

Majors

Charles Macalister (died at Axminster, August. 1869)
John Slessor (died at Sidmouth October 11, 1850)

 

Captains

Charles Wm. Wall,
Wm. Rawson (died July 13. 1850)
Henry Rutherford
Thomas McNeil (received the medal for Waterloo, died September 23, 1839.
Transferred from 7th Veteran Battalion with long service record.)
Nicholas F. Dromgoole (died in 1863)
Henry G. Macleod (wounded)

 

Lieutenants

Samuel Scarfe (captain, August 24, 1815)
J. W. Amos
Francis Stenton
John Osbourne
Thomas McDonough (half-pay from 34th Foot, 1837)
Christopher Spencer Breary (Adjutant)
Robert Thoburn
William Farrant
Aylmer Barnwell
John Hildebrand
Peter Murdoch
James Wilder
Newland R. Tompkins
Edward Shewell
William Rainsforth
George Wilkins
H. Middleton

 

Ensigns

Wm. Levitt Hedding (Lieut., September 25, 1815)
John Hewetson (Lieut., September 28. 1815)
William Macalister (Lieut., November 30, 1815)
John Barwis Wyatt (serving in 1830)
Anthony Macdonell (half-pay, April 2, 1818)
Herbert Potenger
Alex. Duke Hamilton
John Thomas (joined December 22, 1814)

 

Paymaster

William Bury (from January 7, 1808)

 

Quartermaster

Robert Foote (from December 2, 1813)

 

Surgeon

Chas. Simon Doyle (from March 31, 1808)

 

Assistant Surgeons

Wm. Keoghoe (from 1810)
John Purcell (from 1814)

Facings, orange. Lace, silver.

 

Among those of other regiments who either belonged to Sussex or later took up their residence in this county are;

Captain the Earl of March of the 52nd Foot (Staff A.D.C.) became 5th Duke of Richmond in 1819. and died October 21, 1860.

Lieut. C. A. Fitzroy (Staff) R.H. Guards, married Lady Mary Lennox. sister of the preceeding, died 1858.

Lieut.-Colonel Lord Greenock (Staff), 1st Foot Guards, died at St. Leonards, July 16, 1859.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Henry Hollis Bradford, K.C.B., 1st Foot Guards (Staff). Third and youngest son of Thomas Bradford of Ashdown Park, Sussex he died at La Vacherie, near Lilliere, on December 7. 1816, of wounds received at Waterloo, and was buried at Storrington, Sussex.

Lieut. Cornthwaite Ommaney, 1st (Royal) Regiment of Dragoons, died at Chichester September 14. 1833.

Lieut. James Richard Rotton, was as Lieut.-Colonel Rotton a J.P. for Sussex, died at Chichester, February 13, 1855

Sir Francis d'Oyly, K.C.B., 1st Regiment Foot Guards, killed, and Henry d'Oyly, wounded, both sons of the Rev. Matthias d'Oyly, Rector of Buxted in Sussex. The first-named fell by a musket ball towards the close of Waterloo. The latter was severely wounded, but lived until September 26, 1855. Both were then captains in the same battalion.

 

Captain Thomas Brown, of 1st Foot Guards was killed at Quatre Bras. His brother, Henry Alexander Brown, was afterwards well known at St. Leonards, " where he was long remembered as a fine old gentleman of the old school."

Beaumont, Lord Hatham, of the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, was a son of Philadelphia, daughter of Sir John Dyke, Bart., a Sussex landowner. He died unmarried, December 12, 1870.

 

Ensign Charles Short, in the same battalion, may have been a Sussex man since he married a daughter of Richard Barwell, of Stanstead, Sussex. He died at Odiham in. Hants, January 19, 1857.

 

Lieut. Thomas Moneypenny (Gybbon-Mony-penny, was probably born at Rye where his father resided) of the 30th Regiment of Foot. He was wounded at Waterloo, and stood as M.P. for Rye between 1837 and 1841.

 

Captain Charles Sandham, of the Royal Artillery, came of a Sussex family of that name, who had long been landholders in this county. " The first shot fired by the allied artillery at Waterloo was fired by Sandham's brigade." He retired on half-pay as brevet-major on June 7, 1822, and died at Rowdell in Sussex in February, 1869. The name of Sandham was been a household word in the Artillery for more than a century and a half.

 

To end what is doubtless a very imperfect list, the name of Thomas Brewer is added. He belonged to the old Sussex family of Brewer of Pashley, and his sword was in the possession of a cousin of the writer, a great-grandson of this Waterloo warrior.

 

This reply came from Geoffrey Boys:

 

I was interested in the list of Sussex Men at Waterloo, my great great great uncle Edward Payne of Hurst Barns was a Captain in the Scots Greys. He returned from Waterloo with the coat of Colonel James Inglis Hamilton who died at the command of the Scots Greys. He married his widow Mary and they lived in Sussex until his death. Mary married thirdly Count von Stiernmann of Norkopping Castle in Sweden. I have his dress coat made for the Waterloo Ball.

I hope that this is of interest, Sincerely.

 

 

 

 

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