There was originally no information about this man in the EJBA.
When he started researching the field, Jim Boys included only those men he knew from records had actually arrived in the Crimea and were entitled to the Crimea Medal. He later accepted that this was too restrictive, but was unable to add all the men who embarked for but did not reach the Crimea. Many, for example, died en route at Varna, Bulgaria, where epidemic diseases such as cholera were rife in the camps. Others arrived too late to qualify.
The current editors are intending to include these men, and will be adding information as soon as possible.
Further information, Crider 3rd edition p.178, includes material from Tony Margrave.
PB, November 2014:
1851 Census
2, Chandos Street, Marylebone, Middlesex.
Charles Longmore, Visitor, Unmarried, 35, Captain — Army, born Gloucestershire.
He was visiting the home of Francis Burdett Courtenay, 40, who described himself as "M.[?] R. C. of P. of England Prac. as Surgeon", and his wife Eliza, 42. There was another "Gentleman" visitor, and a House Maid, a Cook and a Footman.
For the possibility that Captain Longmore was Courtenay's patient, see below.
A fourth troop of the 8th Hussars, under Captain Longmore, left the Topsham-road Barracks, Exeter, on Monday last [April 24, 1854], for the port of embarkation. The men assembled in heavy marching order shortly before 11 o'clock, and, having been inspected, proceeded along Holloway-hill and South-street, headed by the band of the 3d Dragoons play "St. Patrick's Day in the morning" and other airs, Crowds of people cheered them on their way. The soldiers were in capital spirits, and many of them waved branches of evergreen and colours. They halted for the night at Asburton, and reached Plymouth yesterday.
The head-quarters of the 8th will leave Exeter to-morrow for Plymouth, where transports are now waiting to convey them to Turkey. ... The fittings of the horse transport ship Medora have been completed at the Devonport dock-yard preparatory to the embarkation of the fourth troop of the 8th Hussars, which arrived yesterday morning from Exeter. (The Times, Wednesday, April 26, 1854, p.12, issue 21725, column E) Echunga, horse transport-ship
The Echunga, horse transport-ship, Captain Gray, from Liverpool, arrived to-day, to convey the 8th Hussars to Malta. (The Times, Thursday, April 13, 1854, p. 12, issue 21714, column A)
The horse-transport ship Echunga, Captain Grey, was towed to Plymouth Dockyard on Thursday, to be fitted with stalls for 60 horses. Two flat-bottomed boats, 27 feet long, for landing troops, have been put on board. ...
Captain C. J. Longmore's troop, 8th Hussars, which left Exeter at 11 o'clock on Thursday morning, slept at Ashburton on Thursday night, and arrived at Devonport yesterday. To-day they will embark in the Echunga, for service in the East. The other three troops are expected on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday next. (The Times, Saturday, April 15, 1854, p. 10, issue 21716, column B)
The Echunga transport, No. 44, embarked Captain Longmore's troop of the 8th Hussars on Saturday morning, and in the afternoon she was towed by the Confiance steamer from Homoaze into the Sound. (The Times, Monday, April 17, 1854, p.7, issue 21717, column E)
No. 44 transport, the Echunga, with Captain Longmore's troop of the 8th Hussars, arrived on the 27th ult. (The Times, Thursday, May 4, 1854, p.10, Issue 21732, column E)
Since our last advices from Malta the following officers and troops attached to the British auxiliary force have touched at that island, and continued their passage to the Levant ... May 7 [1854] ... The Echunga and Mary Ann — Major de Salis, Captain Longmore, Lieutenants Clutterbuck and Missenden, Rev. R. Hamilton, Dr. O'Leary, 97 troopers, 101 horses, 8th Hussars. (The Times, Friday May 19, 1854, p. 10, issue 21745, column A)
[I assume this all from the Times reporter William Russell, quoted in Margrave, Newsletter no?, but check. Check the boats and all the dates work.]
At Varna, participated in the "Sore-backed Reconnaissance" (June/July 1854).
From our Special Correspondent [William Russell]
Varna Bay, Varna, Sept 4. [1854]
Sickness, I regret to say, has not left the fleet either here or at Baltschik. On Friday I dined in company with poor Captain Longmore, of the 8th Royal Irish Hussars. He was seized with illness (the cholera) on Saturday; at 8 o'clock on Sunday morning he died on board the Himalaya, and at 11 o'clock I witnessed his remains interred on shore, in a rude coffin, hastily made on board ship, and laid to rest on a ridge of land overlooking the bay, where frequent wooden crosses mark the graves of the French sailors who perished from the cholera.
He was an excellent officer, and, Lord Cardigan speaks highly of his conduct when commanding the 8th in the recent reconnaissance to the Danube."
[Source: "The embarkation of the army from Varna, for the Crimea", from The Times (B), 4 September 1854 — transcribed and annotated by Tony Margrave (Newsletter 30). Notice confirmation of his participation in the Sore-back Reconnaissance.]
Captain Longmore's death is mentioned in a letter from "GC", a private in his troop, writing from the "Himalaya" on 3 September 1854, en route from Varna to the Crimea:
"I am sorry to say Captain Longmore of my troop died this morning from cholera; he came on board two days ago as well as I did; he is just buried."
[Source: Bristol Mercury, 23 September 1854, transcribed and reprinted in Dawson, Letters, pp.33-4.]
Fanny Duberly records his death in her Journal:
Tuesday, September 5th. — I have remained in my cabin ever since I came on board [on Friday September 1st]. Well may we pray for "all prisoners and captives." After my free life under the "sweet heavens," to be hermetically sealed up in the narrow cabin of a ship — I cannot breathe, even though head and shoulders are thrust out of window.
Since I have been here death has been amongst us. Poor Captain Longmore, who on Friday helped me up the ship's side, was dead on Sunday morning:
"Stretch'd no longer on the rack of this rough world."
Death with such inexorable gripe appears in his most appalling shape. He was seized but on Friday with diarrhoea, which turned to cholera on Saturday, and on Sunday the body was left in its silent and solemn desolation.
During his death struggle the party dined in the saloon, separated from the ghastly wrangle only by a screen. With few exceptions, the dinner was a silent one; but presently the champagne corks flew, and — but I grow sick, I cannot draw so vivid a picture of life and death. God save my dear husband and me from dying in the midst of the din of life! The very angels must stand aloof. God is our hope and strength, and without Him we should utterly fail.
[Source: I found this at http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/duberly/journal/journal.html, but should check it against other sources.]
I have also seen, but not checked, a number of references online:
"DIED — In Varna Bay, Charles Joseph Longmore, Esq., senior captain 8th Hussars, eldest son of the late Joseph Longmore, Esq., of the Mythe House, Tewkesbury."
[Source: The Bristol Mercury (Bristol, England), Saturday, September 30, 1854.]
"September 1854 Tewkesbury Monthly Record; death: 3rd September: on board Her Majesty's Steam Transport, Himalaya, in Varna Bay, of Cholera, in his 40th year — Charles Joseph Longmore Esq. Senior Captain of the 8th Royal Irish Hussars, eldest son of the late Joseph Longmore Esq. of Mythe House, Tewkesbury."
[PB, Jan. 2015: There is a reference to Longmore's death in Ch. 28 of the curious THE YOUNG DRAGOON: EVERY DAY LIFE OF A SOLDIER, by AW Drayson, about "Frederick Trenchard, 8th Hussars".]
"Captain Longmore of ours, who accompanied Lord Cardigan in his reconnoitring expedition along the Danube, died of cholera aboard the Himalaya before we sailed, and his body was taken ashore and buried. Not a better officer ever commanded a troop; he was a strict disciplinarian, but not a petty tyrant, and there was not a man in the regiment but who mourned his loss as children would a father."
[Source: This book may be worth finding out more about. J. Paine treats it, I recall, as though it was Trenchard himself who participated in the events and wrote about them — i.e. it is a memoir.
Publication details? J PAINE, "LB Survivors' Reminiscences" says only "London 1866". http://www.loyalbooks.com/book/Young-Dragoon-by-AW-Drayson says "Ward, Lock, and Tyler, London". It is available through Project Gutenberg — copy of file in hand.
But there was no Trenchard in Charge. It's another fictional "eyewitness" account — in this case, one which took in Paine (and Lummis?).
In fact, its author seems to have been AW Drayson (Alfred Wilks Drayson 1827-1901.
There's a list of Drayson books here: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Drayson%2C%20Alfred%20W.%20(Alfred%20Wilks)%2C%201827-1901]
Most of his books are about Southern Africa — Among the Zulus (1870), Early Days Among the Boers (1900), Sporting Scenes Amongst the Kaffirs of South Africa (1858), but also Practical military surveying and sketching, with the use of the compass and sexiant, theodolite, mountain barometer, etc. ...(1874), The art of practical whist (1879), The art of practical billiards for amateurs (1889), and most intriguing of all, The geological evidences of the antiquity of man : with an outline of glacial and post-tertiary geology and remarks in the origin of species, with special reference to man's first appearance on the earth (1873), by "Lieut.Col Drayson".)
Hart's Army List 1876 says:
Alfred W. Drayson, Lt.Col. R. Artillery, [Cornet & Lieut or Ensign] 6 Aug. 1846, [Lieut.] 28 Nov. 1846, [Captain] 17 Feb. 1854, [Major] Jan. 1868, [Lieut-Col.] 20 Dec. 1869, [Colonel] 20 Dec. 1874.
Drayson's name crops up as a major influence on the young Arthur Conan Doyle, when living as a young doctor in Southsea (Acc. to Wikipedia, CD set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea, in 1882. The practice was initially not very successful. While waiting for patients, Doyle again began writing fiction. He moved to London 10 years later.)
"Somewhat belatedly, it dawned on Conan Doyle that waiting for patients to come to him was no way to build a profitable practice and that it would be useful to get out and about to meet people and potential patients... he became a member of the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society, which met on alternate Tuesday evenings. and whose members were drawn from the upper middle classes. largely professional men with intellectual aspirations. The President was Major General Alfred W. Drayson, author of several astronomical works, dozens of articles in Boys' Own Paper and Every Boy's Magazine, and a committed Spiritualist, who would later be instrumental in introducing Conan Doyle to spiritualism."
[Source: Russell Miller, The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Biography (2008).]
"When Doyle practised as a physician at Southsea, he participated in table turning sittings at the home of one of his patients, General Drayson, a teacher at the Greenwich Naval College. In his Memoirs and Adventures, he wrote:
'I was so impressed that I wrote an account of it to Light, the psychic weekly paper, and so in the year I actually put myself on the public record as a student of these matters.'[p.86]"
[Source: Dr Andrzej Diniejko, 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Victorian Spiritualism,' http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/doyle/spiritualism.html]
There is a brief account of the history of Mythe House, Tewkesbury, at http://www.gi.freeuk.com/mythehousehistory.htm.
Ironically the imposing Mythe House was probably demolished in 1954/5 [1 — Index to photographs in C. Burd "Around Tewkesbury" p115, published by Tempus 2001.] because of neglect during its period of occupation by US army officers in World War II: no doubt it was chosen by them because of its local pre-eminence.
When it was last sold in 1981, the particulars claimed that the estate comprised 9.5 acres and that the house had been built in 1725 for de L'Isle family [2 — Photographic Archive Notes 18.3.2000 Visit to National Monuments Record Centre, (NMRC) Swindon, 01793-414600; sale particulars by Humberts; sold as whole or in 3 lots; Lot 3 4.75 acres of land and paddock.] Asylum seekers from the French Revolution, it was the marquis who gave the land for the building of St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church on the other side of the Turnpike Road to Worcester.
It was then remodelled in "Strawberry Hill Gothic" in 1812, although there was also a standard Georgian Coach House. [3 — This was an early form of Gothic revival after Horace Walpole rebuilt his house in Twickenham in 1747 — at a time when neo-classical Georgian architecture was in favour. The more earnest religious style of Gothic Revival like the RC Church became popular after about 1840.]
Not much is known about the house before the first detailed census of 1841 when it was inhabited by Joseph Longmore but it may be that he inhabited the house in 1819 when an infant death was recorded.
It may well be that the source of his wealth was West Indian slavery since he was involved with the political struggle against abolition before 1838: "...tho' not a planter, [Mr. Longmore] has been for many years and still is, I believe, intimately connected with West India Property".[5 — GRO Collection: letter dated 5 March 1824 to the editors of the Gloucester Journal from L Winterbotham]
In 1851 the family had 6 resident servants and Mr. Longmore died in 1854, a year before his son of cholera en route for the Crimean War.[6 = Joseph Longmore 73, of the Mythe House Abbey Memorial 29.05.1854, Tewkesburian p315.
September 1854 Tewkesbury Monthly Record; death: 3rd September: on board Her Majesty's Steam Transport, Himalaya, in Varna Bay, of Cholera, in his 40th year — Charles Joseph Longmore Esq. Senior Captain of the 8th Royal Irish Hussars, eldest son of the late Joseph Longmore Esq. of Mythe House, Tewkesbury.]
May be worth following comment that "the source of his wealth was West Indian slavery since he was involved with the political struggle against abolition before 1838: "...tho' not a planter, [Mr. Longmore] has been for many years and still is, I believe, intimately connected with West India Property".[5 — GRO Collection: letter dated 5 March 1824 to the editors of the Gloucester Journal from L Winterbotham]"
See also Joseph Longmore's will, 25 April 1851, transcribed and published online at http://www.tewkesburyhistory.com/wills/josephlongmore.html (accessed 20.11.14).
I have only scanned this quickly but it appears that in 1851 Joseph willed his estate to be sold and the proceeds invested to provide an income to support his wife until she died. Part of the money raised was also to be distributed among his five children, including two sums (including one of seven thousand four hundred pounds) to his eldest son, Charles. Charles was also to be given any plate not retained by his mother and all of Joseph's printed books and pictures.
In a codicil in August 1851 he reduced the sum due to Charles by four hundred pounds to seven thousand pounds.
More significantly, when Charles left for the Crimea, another codicil was added, dated 27 May 1854, to distribute his share of the estate equally among his two brothers and two sisters should he die:
My son Charles having gone with his regiment to the east, I direct that in the event of his death before the two bequests in my will and codicil in his favour, and all residue (save as after mentioned) shall go one fourth the part thereof to his brother Arthur one fourth, to his sister Laura one fourth, to his sister Lydia and the other fourth to my trustees for the benefit of my daughter Emma Croker and her family in the same way as the equal fifth part of two several sums of five thousand pounds and ten thousand pounds is settled in my said will for such benefit. In the like event I give the whole of my articles of household furniture and the whole of my plate and all my books and pictures to my wife Harriett."
1851 Census
2, Chandos Street, Marylebone, Middlesex.
Charles Longmore, Visitor, Unmarried, 35, Captain — Army, born Gloucestershire.
He was visiting the home of Francis Burdett Courtenay, 40, who described himself as "M.[?] R. C. of P. of England Prac. as Surgeon", and his wife Eliza, 42. There was another "Gentleman" visitor, and a House Maid, a Cook and a Footman.
Was Charles Longmore in the house as a patient?
20.11.14: I thought this might be worth pursuing.
Chandos Street runs parallel to Wimpole Street and Harley Street — then as now an area identified with medical practice.
Courtenay's statement that he was "M[?] R. C. of P. of England Prac. as Surgeon": does this mean he was (or was claiming to be) a Member of the Royal College of Physicians of England, Practising as a Surgeon? I have not been able to find FBC on the register of the RCP for this date (http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/VolumeIV). According to the RCP, before the General Medical Council was founded in 1859, there was no central authority which licensed medical practitioners. Therefore there was no central list of qualified medical practitioners. Check whether Courtenay appears on their records. These should be available on ancestry.co.uk.
In 1841, he appears as "Francis Courtnay [?], 31, Surgeon, born Middlesex", living with two slightly younger women with the same surname, presumably his sisters, in Golden Square [Soho], Middlesex.
In 1861 he and his wife Eliza were "Boarders" at the Railway Tavern, Hemel Hempstead. He described himself at this time as aged 50, "Member of the Royal College of London".
In 1881, by now aged 70, a widower, he was still living at Chandos Street, a "Consulting Surgeon, MRCS Eng". There were two servants.
There are numerous references online to books by Francis Burdett Courtenay, above all On Spermatorrhoea and the Professional Fallacies and Popular Delusions Which Prevail in Relation to Its Nature, Consequences, and Treatment, first published in date? but numerous editions at least until date?.
At this time he was still at the same address, and claiming he he was a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons and "formerly Surgeon to the Metropolitan Infirmary for the Cure of Stricture of the Urethra".
He writes about his medical training:
"[A]t an early period of my career as a consulting surgeon, I adopted and devoted myself to the study and treatment of a special class of diseases — namely, those incidental to the Genito Urinary Organs. [p.?]
He claimed to be a man of considerable medical (and social) experience:
Nearly sixty years have elapsed since I commenced my professional career by being apprenticed (as the fashion then was) to Messrs. Banks and Jones, of Ryde, Isle of Wight, practising as Surgeon-Apothecaries — the phrase used in those days to designate medical general practitioners. Subsequently, I resided as assistant with the late Mr. Welch, at Stanstead, in Essex.
From thence I went to reside with Mr. Nedham, of Belgrave Gate, Leicester, who was a gentleman of great eminence in the profession, and who held the appointments of Senior Surgeon to the Leicester County Infirmary, Fever House, Lunatic Asylum, the County and Town Gaols, and was, at the same time, Surgeon to several charities existing in that town.
On leaving Leicester, and after spending some time as a student at Guy's [PB: did he qualify?}, I went to reside with the late Mr. Stevens, at Pewsey, Wilts. All of these gentlemen had large practices. At the first and the last places I had unusual opportunities of studying my profession in purely agricultural districts. [Whilst?] I was at Leicester I had the inestimable advantage of acquiring a knowledge of it not only among all classes of the usual residents of a manufacturing town, but also amongst county families. [p.?]
He also noted that his father had specialised in the same area of practice:
I think, then, that I may claim to hold, in the narrow compass of my own brain, a combined experience of eighty-nine years in the treatment of the maladies which have formed the subject of my speciality. [p.?]
By this time his book, ON SPERMATORRHOEA AND CERTAIN FUNCTIONAL DERANGEMENTS AND DEBILITIES OF THE GENERATIVE SYSTEM: THEIR NATURE, TREATMENT, AND CURE, had gone through 13 editions (and there may be more).
Explain "Spermatorrhoea" and contemporary anxieties about seminal loss. Refer e.g. to Barker-Benfield.
There are two references to army men in this work, either of whom could (at a long stretch) be Longmore. But in any case, they appear to confirm that army men were indeed among his patients. The second reference is perhaps the more relevant, as it relates directly to the Crimean War:
"An officer in the army called to consult me under the impression that he was suffering from Spermatorrhoea. After having asked him such questions as tbe nature of his case required, and made an examination of some discharge which he brought me, thinking it to be seminal, I found that he was one of that difficult class to treat, an imaginary sufferer under the malady. I expressed an opinion to this effect, but found that he, nevertheless, remained deeply impressed with the notion that he was labouring under Spermatorrhoea in its worst form.
Upon this I questioned him further as to his grounds for thus thinking; and then it came out that before coming to me he had applied to a notorious quack firm, who had assured him that every time he urinated, semen was passing in his urine, and consequently he was labouring under a most aggravated form of Spermatorrhoea.
He was further told that if he did not place himself under the care of the firm, and receive their celebrated remedies, he would have softening of the brain! For the cure thus offered to him, the modest fee of four hundred guineas was demanded. This amount was not obtained from him, but he was defrauded out of a considerable sum of money during the period he remamed under their care.
Upon my expressing surprise that an educated man like himself should have applied to such fellows, and saying that I thought his conduct very foolish, he replied that, situated as he had been, he did not think he had acted so very foolishly.
I asked him what he meant, upon which he told me that, before he had gone to the quack firm, he had consulted one of the most eminent members of the medical profession; and that this gentleman evidently listened to his narration of his case with great impatience and indifference, and upon the conclusion of hia history handed him a prescription saying: 'There, take that for six weeks, and if it does not do you any good, I don't know what will.'
The interpretation the patient put on this conduct and the remarks was, that he need not trouble himself to call again. Judging from this reception that he would fare no better if he applied to any other equally well known and eminent member of the medical profession, he was induced, by seeing the specious advertisements of the quack firm, to seek their aid.
After several interview I had the pleasure of fully removing his groundless fears.
On the war with Russia occurring, he went to the Crimea, and remained there during the whole campaign. On his return he called on me, and said that, notwithstanding the privations and fatigue he had in common with the rest of our army undergone, he was stronger and in better health than he had ever been before.
Longmore, of course, did not return from the Crimea.
The other case, earlier in the book, also has points of similarity with Longmore.
It centres on the attempted exploitation (by a quack — Courtenay is obsessed with them, and wrote at least book or pamphlet on the subject — title in hand) of a terrified young man, a cavalryman who believes he will have to leave the regiment, the son of a baronet, with prospects of inheriting a considerable fortune, but with limited funds until his father dies. Again the problem is the loss of vital energy through "Spermatorrhoea". The dates given nearly fit, but not quite. Say more, if useful.