Birth & early life
Eds: Alfred Endsor is shown in the IGI records as being born 9th of April 1837, at Leamington Priors, Warwick the son of John Endsor and Mary.
Enlistment
Enlisted at Birmingham on the 1st of October 1853.
Age: 16.
Height: 5' 7”.
Trade: None, (on enlistment) but as a "boot-closer" on discharge.
Features: Fresh complexion. Grey eyes. Brown hair.
Service, discharge & pension
Embarked for the Crimea on the 4th of September 1855 as "Acting Trumpeter", being one of a draft under Lieutenant Robert McNeill, and joining the regiment on the 27th of September.
Appointed Trumpeter on the 10th of December 1855.
Transferred to the 17th Lancers on the 10th of September 1857. Regimental No. 87.
Reverted to Private on the 6th of October 1857.
Embarked for India from Cork aboard the S.S. "Great Britain " on the 8th of October 1857.
From Private to Corporal 23rd of March 1859.
Sent to Bombay on the 23rd of November 1863 for “Invaliding” to England, on passage from the 21st of January 1864 and being at the Canterbury Depot from the 21st of May 1864
Reduced to Private on the 3rd of December 1864 by a Regimental Court-martial.
Discharged "invalided", from Colchester on the 26th of September 1865. "Has Chronic hepatitis - from tropical service."
Served 12 years, (2 years under age.) In Turkey and the Crimea, 9 months. India, 6 years 1 month.
Conduct: " good."
Aged 27 years on discharge.
Granted a pension of 8d. per day for two years, but this was made permanent on the 7th of March 1869.
Served in the field at Rajghur with Captain William Gordon. In common with many of those who served with this officer he added the clasp for C.I. to his medal.
Medals & commemorations
In possession of two Good Conduct badges.
EJB: His name cannot be found on the existing medal rolls, but the existence of a Crimean medal with officially impressed naming (and with the clasp for Sebastopol) does confirm he received one. However, from his known date of joining the regiment in the Crimea this would seem to be after the qualifying date (September 9th) for the clasp. However, as he had served in Eupatoria in October-November of 1855, this would seem to entitle him for the medal only. (See records of men in the 4th LD. who also served there). Was he mistakenly issued with a clasp or did he perhaps add the clasp himself?
Entitled to the Mutiny medal without clasp.
An officially impressed Crimean medal and Indian Mutiny medal were in a Donald Hall list for April 1978. His Crimean and Mutiny medals, as described, and with a Turkish Crimean medal (British issue) and unnamed, were known to be in a West of England collection in 1981.
Living in London after discharge, but in 1869, he was living in Coventry.
In 1881 he appears on the census as Alfred Endson (sic) a “Warder, Convict Service” aged 44 born in Leamington. By this time he was a widower lodging at 5 Purbeck Place, London.
Death & burial
A man of this name is shown as dying in the Medway District (Rochester, Gillingham and Chatham) in the quarter of June 1891, aged 54. Judging by the locality he was likely still employed in the Convict Service at the time.
Photographs & illustrations