when a Regiment went abroad on active service, only a few women were allowed to go with it-usually six wives to every hundred men, drawn by ballot. Women with children were often excluded from the ballot. Most wives were desperate to go with their regiments when they went abroad: partly because they wanted to be with their loved ones, but also because they will quite likely to starve if they were left behind.

Active Service

All wives not drawn ” to go” then had to state where their home parish was, or where their families live, and would be given a document giving their roots to that place, which entitled them to claim a travel allowance from the authorities in all the places they had to pass through till they got home. They are either their families would take them in, or their native parish was obliged to support them out of the poor rates. Their husbands could not support them, even if they wanted to: there were no arrangements to soldiers to remit any off their pay to their families while abroad on service. Any woman who had no family to help her, and can prove that she belonged to any parish (and parish authorities would usually deny responsibility for her if there were any kind of doubt) was in a desperate situation, especially if she had children to look after which would hinder her getting work. Foreign wives married on campaign and brought back home (Canadians or Spaniards example) were particularly badly off if their husbands regiments went abroad again, as they had neither families nor home parishes in Britain.

Even if a wife were drawn to go in the ballot, her position was far from secure. She had to march, carry her own belongings and fend for herself, all on half ration; and if her husband died her ration entitlement stopped the same day. If you didn’t want to starve she often had to marry another soldier within days-and if he died, she married again. The largest number of husbands any woman is known to hand in the peninsular is six. If a widow didn’t choose to marry again the army would usually send her home on a transport ship but it was actually not until 1810 better regulation was made to give her travel allowance between the port she arrived at and her home parish: before that it seems that soldier’s widow’s coming home from the continent were simply dumps on the quayside and left to fend for themselves.

Next in the series Regimental Welfare

Reproduced with kind permission from the authorVictoria Soult Dennis