A research note by Philip Boys and Roy Mills
No complete roll of the men who rode in the Charge of the Light Brigade was made at the time. Every list since has been built up from scattered evidence, and none can be definitive.
The editors of this site, Philip Boys and Roy Mills, are compiling an improved list. It will not be final either, but it aims to be better than those before it in one particular way: it will show its working. For every man, the reader will be able to see why he is included and how strong the case is.
This page explains the kinds of evidence, the cases that cause doubt in both directions, and the grading method the new list will use. A companion page, The Balaklava clasp: what it proves, and what it does not, deals with the clasp to the Crimea Medal and with the test case of John Breese.
No complete roll of the Chargers was made at the time. Every list since has been built up from scattered evidence, and the totals still differ by a few dozen.
The totals. Kinglake gives 673 who went into action, from the regimental musters. W. H. Russell in The Times counted 607 sabres. Adkin gives 668 and Brighton "at least" 666. For casualties, Paget's 1975 revision gives 118 killed, 127 wounded and about 60 taken prisoner. Calthorpe gives 335 horses killed or destroyed. (Wikipedia: Charge of the Light Brigade, citing Kinglake 1875, Russell 1854, Adkin 1996, Brighton 2004, Paget 1975, Calthorpe 1857.) [To check: each figure against the original]
Kinds of evidence, strongest first:
| Evidence | What it proves | Caveats |
|---|---|---|
| Casualty returns for 25 October (killed, wounded, missing) | He was hit or lost in the Charge | Wounded at Balaklava is not always wounded in the Charge: the Heavy Brigade and the gunners also had casualties |
| Russian prisoner lists and exchange records | Captured in the Charge | Spellings garbled in transliteration |
| Contemporary letters, diaries and memoirs naming him, written 1854–56 | He rode, if the writer saw him | Memory and hearsay creep in. Note who saw what |
| Troop or muster rolls marked for the day | Present with his troop | Present is not the same as charged. Check the duty and sick lists |
| Balaklava clasp on the medal roll | Present at the battle | Not proof he charged (see the clasp page) |
| 1875 banquet attendance; 1877 Balaclava Commemoration Society list | Accepted by his comrades in the 1870s | The 1877 list was revised in 1879 and some names were dropped |
| Light Brigade Relief Fund and later funds (from about 1890) | Accepted by the fund's committee | The committees relied on statements and testimonials. Impostors got through |
| Obituaries, gravestones, family tradition | Only that he or his family claimed it | Weakest. Often inflated, and sometimes contradictory |
The scale of false claims. Canon William Lummis was told of an 1875 reunion at which over 2,000 men claimed to have charged (Wikipedia: William Lummis). [To check: the original source of that story] Lummis's files, now at the National Army Museum, and his Honour the Light Brigade (with K. G. Wynn, 1973) became the standard starting point. E. J. Boys then spent forty years tracing the men individually (Wikipedia: Edward James Boys).
Errors run in both directions: men who rode but were never listed, and men listed or self-proclaimed who did not ride.
Men who rode without being on parade. The best-documented is Private John Vahey ("Butcher Jack"), 598, 17th Lancers. He was slaughtering cattle near Balaklava that morning, and some accounts say he had broken out of arrest. He joined the Charge on a borrowed horse, in his butcher's smock. Wightman, Sergeant-Major Barker and Pardoe all describe him, though their details differ, and Forbes's colourful version is doubtful. Vahey received the Balaklava clasp and the DCM (recommended 19 January 1855) (Vahey page; Noonans, 11 December 2019, Lot 70). Other cooks, batmen and men on the sick list are said to have done the same. Each such claim needs a named witness.
Men credited by their comrades but later doubted.
| Man | Evidence for | Evidence against | Balaklava clasp |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Proctor, 1467, 11th Hussars | 1875 banquet; 1877 list; Worcester Daily Times, 1912; family account | Lummis & Wynn: "under fire" but did not charge; dropped from the 1879 list | Yes, on his CO's certificate of 24 August 1857 |
| John Breese (Breeze), 1102, 11th Hussars | 1875 banquet; 1877 list; 1889 obituaries; gravestone | Dropped from the 1879 list; no contemporary witness; no clasp | No (see the test case) |
The pairing is instructive. Both men were named in 1877 and dropped in 1879, so the 1879 revisers evidently doubted them both. Proctor was under fire at Balaklava and got the clasp. Breese did not.
Self-proclaimed Chargers. These range from genuine Light Brigade men who exaggerated their part to men who were never in the Crimea. Many surfaced in the press, at reunions and before the relief funds from the 1870s to the 1910s, including the North American claimants studied in the Tramps project. [Link to the Tramps pages when published.]
Men wrongly dropped. A man missing from both the 1877 and 1879 lists, with no wound and no letter naming him, can vanish from every list even if he rode. Muster rolls marked for 25 October, and the troop-by-troop accounts in later memoirs, are the main way to recover such men. Mullins of the 17th Lancers, placed in No. 4 Troop by a copy muster roll, is an example of this method (Mullins page).
1. Evidence, not reputation. A man is included because of what the sources say, not because he was on a published list, attended a dinner or was called a Balaklava hero in an obituary.
2. Contemporary sources outweigh later ones. A casualty return of October 1854 counts for more than a newspaper interview of 1890. The nearer a source is to the event, the more weight it carries.
3. The clasp is not proof either way. As shown on the companion page, the Balaklava clasp was issued to everyone present with the cavalry division on the day, and some Chargers' medals lack it. A clasp on the roll is a necessary condition for most men, but it is not sufficient.
4. Every judgement is graded and dated. Grades will change as new evidence is found. Each entry records who made the judgement and when.
5. Nobody is silently dropped. A man who has appeared on any earlier list stays in the database, even if he is graded D or E, with the reason given. This stops the same mistaken name from being added back later.
| Grade | Meaning | Typical evidence |
|---|---|---|
| A: Confirmed | Beyond reasonable doubt that he rode in the Charge | Named in a casualty or prisoner return for 25 October 1854; horse killed under him on the day; named as a Charger by a contemporary eyewitness writing before about 1860; D.C.M. or V.C. citation for the Charge |
| B: Probable | Strong case, but no single decisive document | Present and effective on the October 1854 muster, in a troop known to have charged, with Balaklava clasp on the roll, and named on the 1877 or 1879 list or by a reliable later witness |
| C: Possible | Some evidence, nothing contradicts it, but it is thin | Balaklava clasp on the roll and on a later list only; or a late claim (fund, banquet, obituary) that fits the known facts |
| D: Doubtful | Evidence conflicts, or a known reason to think he was elsewhere | Recorded as sick, on detached duty, on baggage guard or with the Heavy Brigade; claim first made decades later; dropped from the 1879 list after being on the 1877 one. Example: John Breese |
| E: Rejected | Shown not to have charged, or an impostor | Not in the Crimea at the date; enlisted after October 1854; regiment not present; claim disproved |
Where a grade is borderline, the entry should say so (e.g. "B/C") rather than force a choice.
Each man should have one record, with these fields:
— Name, as on the muster roll, with variant spellings (e.g. Breese / Breeze).
— Regimental number, regiment and troop.
— Rank on 25 October 1854.
— Clasp on the medal roll (WO 100): yes / no / not checked, with piece and folio.
— October 1854 muster (WO 12): present / sick / detached / not checked, with piece and folio.
— Casualty or prisoner return: killed, wounded, prisoner, horse killed; with source.
— 1877 list and 1879 list: on / off.
— Light Brigade Relief Fund (1890s): applied / granted / refused.
— Contemporary witness evidence: who names him, where, and when written.
— Later claims: banquets, interviews, obituaries, gravestones, with dates.
— Medal: present whereabouts or last sale, clasps actually on the medal, any signs of replacement or added clasps.
— Grade (A–E), with a one-line reason.
— Editor and date of the latest judgement (PB, RM).
— Notes and open questions.
1. Start from a union list of every name on every earlier list (1877, 1879, Lummis and Wynn, the E.J. Boys Archive, Brighton and others), so that no claimant is missed.
2. Check each name against the Balaklava clasp roll (WO 100) and the October 1854 muster (WO 12). These two checks alone will move many names between grades.
3. Add casualty and prisoner returns, which give a core of A-grade men.
4. Work through the eyewitness accounts (Loy Smith, Mitchell, Wightman, Pennington and others), noting every named man.
5. Only then weigh late evidence, such as the fund, the banquets and obituaries, to separate C from D.
6. Publish with the grade shown against every name, and a clear statement that the list will be revised.
The published list should show totals by grade as well as by regiment, so that readers can see, for example, how many men are A or B (the safe core) and how many are only C. That is more honest than a single headline figure such as "673", and it makes the list useful to others: a researcher looking at one man can see at once how firm his place is and where the evidence lies.
— Hansard, House of Lords, 23 January 1855: announcement of the Crimea Medal and its clasps.
— London Gazette, issue 21699, p. 1577: the General Order for the Balaklava clasp, asking Lord Raglan for lists of the men entitled. The Sebastopol clasp followed in October 1855.
— The National Archives, WO 100: campaign medal and clasp rolls, Crimea, including the cavalry regiments (Balaklava roll). [To check: piece numbers for 4th LD, 8th H, 11th H, 13th LD, 17th L]
— The National Archives, WO 12: regimental muster books and pay lists, October–December 1854. [To check: pieces for the five regiments]
— Casualty returns for 25 October 1854, printed in the London Gazette (November 1854) and in Lord Raglan's despatches.
— The 1877 and 1879 lists of survivors compiled for the Balaklava commemorations, and the Light Brigade Relief Fund records (1890s).
— George Loy Smith, A Victorian R.S.M.: From India to the Crimea, ed. Michael Hargreave Mawson (Tunbridge Wells, 1987). Contemporary diary-based memoir by the R.S.M. of the 11th Hussars; names Breese at Inkerman and Scutari.
— Proctor's 1857 certificate (see the Proctor entry on chargeofthelightbrigade.com).
— A.W. Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea, vol. IV (Edinburgh and London, 1868 and later editions).
— George Paget, The Light Cavalry Brigade in the Crimea (London, 1881).
— William Lummis and Kenneth Wynn, Honour the Light Brigade (London: J.B. Hayward, 1973). The standard roll; records about 2,000 claimants and the evidence for many.
— E.C. Joslin, A.R. Litherland and B.T. Simpkin, British Battles and Medals (London: Spink, 1988), for the Crimea Medal and clasps.
— E.J. Boys Archive, chargeofthelightbrigade.com (ed. Philip Boys and Roy Mills): entries for John Breese, Proctor, Mullins and Vahey.
— Noonans (formerly Dix Noonan Webb), Lot 809, 8 May 2019, Breese's group of four (DCM; Crimea with Alma, Inkermann, Sebastopol; Jubilee 1887; Turkish Crimea), with catalogue note. Earlier sales: Glendining's, June 1929 (Needes Collection), and DNW, December 2002.
— Other Noonans and DNW lots cited for medals of Chargers without the Balaklava clasp (e.g. Parkes). [To check: lot references]
— Wikipedia, "Crimea Medal" and "Charge of the Light Brigade", used only as a first pointer and checked against the sources above.
1. Who compiled the 1877 and 1879 lists, and on what evidence; why some men were removed between the two.
2. The WO 100 clasp rolls and WO 12 musters for all five regiments: piece numbers, and a systematic check of every name against both.
3. The Lummis papers (National Army Museum): how far his working files record the evidence for each man.
4. The source of the story of 2,000 claimants at an 1875 reunion.
5. Each published total (Kinglake, Russell, Adkin, Brighton, Paget, Calthorpe) against the original.