Gunner William Edington R.H.A. (a relative)

 Many years ago me and my sister started doing our family history and this being pre-internet it involved traveling to various Records Offices and scrolling through endless micro-films etc . Most of our relatives where rather ordanary folk and mainly farm labourers in the North of England .

However we came across this one chap who was my mothers Grt Grt  Grand father who lived in Berwickshire at Greenlaw and appeared on various census as a retired Army Pensioner ! . We where intrigued and dug deeper and were luck enough to to be able to track him down and his military career . (sadly no photo of the actual chap - but this illustrates his uniform in 1815)

This is a copy of the census reports my sister typed up showing him and his family .

We were also luck enough to be able to find his service record - not a good picture but it was scanned on a rather dodgy photo copier . He joined the RHA in June 1805 aged 23 and served for 13 years BUT got 15 years pension ! - very odd ! , then we discovered that soldiers who served in the Waterloo Campaign were given an extra 2 years of pension as a thank you . He is described as 5'9" tall , Blue eyes, and brown hair.. His conduct had been good and was discharged due to a reduction in the Army . He returned home and became a groom at the local Mansion at Greenlaw 

He is recorded on the Waterloo Medal Roll serving in Lt. Col. Gardiners Troop 

Waterloo was the first time every soldier recieved a medal and with it the extra years pension .

He was also probably in the Penninsular War in Spain and Portugal as Gardiners Troop served there as well .

We were also luck enough to find a excert from the Diary of Lt Willia Bates Ingoldsby who served in 'E' troop Gardiners Battery during the Waterloo Campaign (click on photo to enlarge)

As battles go 'E' Troop had a quite uneventful day, attached to Vivian's Cavalry Brigade they didn't see much action till the French retired and then they supported the Cavalry in pursuit of the fleeing enemy . Earlier in the battle they did send a gun forward to shell the enemy but the horse teams became bogged down and their lighter guns couldn't effectively reach the French and one of the limbers blew up when hit by a French cannon ball - so they retired rather ignominiously to their original position with the loss of a Sergeant killed. The above map is from the diary and records the later manouvers of 'E' Troop. Sorry for the rather dodgy photos as the originals date before the digital era but if you click on them they do enlarge . It's nice to have a relitive of note after enless labourers and farm hands