History Society meeting report

Audlem and District History Society

On Thursday evening the society members enjoyed an interesting talk by Mavis and Peter Smith giving an account of their research into men of Betley who served as soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

One difficulty that they had encountered was that contemporary newspapers gave reasonable accounts of the military activities of the aristocracy and the landed gentry – and of the activities of "villains"- but hardly anything was recorded of the service of the common man. Mavis recounted how she had overcome this problem by tracing some letters home from these ordinary men from Betley serving in the Peninsular War. That is, if the word 'ordinary' can truly be used for men such as one who sailed across the Atlantic four times to serve in Bermuda and Canada, then India and finally sailed to Australia (presumably escorting convicts to the colony) during his time in the army!

In recounting some of the contents of these letters, Mavis also filled us in with the wider picture of the events of the war and the progress of the major battles of the time, such as Badajos where the British army was victorious, but where a total of 10,000 men died in the battle, and it was moving to be given an account of it, as witnessed first hand, from William Naylor's letter home to his parents in Betley.

Peter Smith then gave us an informative account of the various websites they had found to be helpful in garnering information while doing their research: www/nationalarchives.com; forces-war-records.co.uk; and britishnewspaperarchives.co.uk etc

One outcome of interest to Audlem residents was that, in the course of their researches, Mavis and Peter had come across the names of five men of Audlem who were also serving soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars. They were

• James Adams – 2nd Foot Regiment
• Henry Brown – 2nd Foot Guards
• Richard Dowler – Royal Artillery
• Samuel Mullinder – Royal Artillery
• Jacob Melum – Royal Artillery

Do these names or surnames ring a bell with any Audlem residents today?

We extend our thanks to Mavis and Peter for a most interesting evening.

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