Born at Bangalore, East Indies.
Enlisted at Dublin on the 17th of December 1846.
Age: 18.
Height: 6' 0".
Trade: None shown.
Features: Fresh complexion. Grey eyes. Brown hair.
Sent to Scutari on the 26th of September and rejoined the regiment on the 3rd of October 1854.
At Scutari again from the 15th of January until rejoining the regiment on the 3rd of February 1855.
From Private to Trumpeter. 9th of August 1855.
Discharged from Hounslow on the 26th of December 1860, as:
"Unfit for further service. - Has chronic rheumatism. Suffers much also from bronchitis, but it would not hinder him from earning a livelihood."
Served 14 years 190 days. In Turkey and the Crimea, 2 years.
Conduct: "very good". Five times entered in the Regimental Defaulter's book. Never tried by Court-martial.
Awarded a pension of 9d. per day for four years.
Letters regarding pension to the 13th of February 1873.
Aged 32 years on discharge.
Documents confirm the award of the Crimean medal with four clasps and the Turkish medal.
Entitled to the Crimean with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman and Sebastopol. (He is shown as a Trumpeter on the Sebastopol clasp roll.)
To live at Thames Ditton, Surrey, after discharge, but he later moved to Manchester.
[RM: The 1881 Census returns show him as aged 49, born East Indies, a Warehouseman living at 31 Dorset Street, Salford. He was married to Harriet aged 42 and born Ireland with two sons Edgar William aged 13 and James Henry aged 6 both born in Salford.
1891 Census
31, Dorset Street, Salford as per 1881.
Harriet Finlay, 51, widow, Laundress, born Ireland.
James H. Fionlay, 16, Errand boy, born Salford.
Harriet Finlay is listed in the GRO records as dying in the Salford registration District in the December quarter of 1897, aged 58.]
Death registered
William Finlay, 48, December Quarter 1881, Salford.
Registration of death & Census information for 1891, kindly provided by Chris Poole.