Preface

In this book I have collected together the military men who were born or lived in Ringstead.

We see in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the soldiers and sailors travelled all over Great Britain and Ireland and a few travelled to Asia and the United States of America. Not all of them returned. Some died in service, others settled in other places and some we have been unable to locate after they were discharged. For those who did return, what tales they had to tell of foreign lands and different peoples and customs. Were the locals eager to hear of the world outside or were they just the bore in the corner of the pub?

We see with the military men and in the stories of the civilian population that Ringstead was not an isolated static community as we might think of rural life at the time but had a flow of people into and from the village as well as a constant flow of travelling people through it.

I have tried to put my main sources at the end of each chapter so that people can see, and perhaps follow up, how the stories emerged. The chapters are in approximate chronological order but I have grouped families in a single chapter.

David Ball

May 2018

Ringstead Soldiers, Sailors and Marines 1776 – 1902

In Date Order of Enlistments