Enlistment
Enlisted at Dublin on the 11th of July 1846.
Age: 19.
Height: 5' 8”.
Trade: Blacksmith.
Service
Tried by a Regimental Court-martial on the 17th of July 1854 and given 50 lashes for "insubordination."
Discharged, "by his own request", from Aldershot on the 15th of April 1866.
Served 16 years 23 days, to count.
Conduct and character: "Bad". Not in possession of any Good Conduct badges.
Medals & commemorations
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman and Sebastopol.
("Sebastopol" clasp sent on O/C.s certificate, date unreadable.)
Further Information
Eds:
Doyle’s flogging is mentioned in Albert Mitchells’ Memoirs:
“One of our men was tried by District Court Martial for an act of insubordianation in striking a Sejeant. He was sentenced to fifty lashes….We were ordered to parade early one morning to witness the sentence being carried into effect….This was the first time it had fallen my lot to see a fellow soldier flogged…a couple of Farriers were were already stripped for the work. They were each to give him twenty five lashes…"
The account continues in graphic detail: pp25-26.
The 1881 Census Returns show a man of this name, a Blacksmith as born 1829 in Dublin living at 19 Alex Cottages, Kingston On Thames, Surrey. Wife Ann, aged 45, born Wimbledon, and two stepdaughters aged 11 and 9.
A William Doyle is recorded as having died in the Greenwich district, aged 66, in the June quarter of 1895.
An Ann Doyle died aged 63 in the Kingston district, December quarter of 1895.
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Photographs & illustrations