Hi Peter - could you provide the details that you have and then the members can start to have a ferret around.
Many thanks,
My detailed dates are in Spain but heregoes with as much as I can recall or have to hand.
His name was William Blakely, sometimes Blakeley, and he was born around 1782. He joined the Leicester Fenc in 1798 aged 16 as an Ensign.
He switched to Devon and Cornwall in the same year and fought in Ireland until disbanded in (I think) 1802. He finished as a Lieutenant.
He does not appear again for a while but there are letters to the C in C requesting appointments. He had an interview with Duke of York as well and was recommended but nothing appears to have come of it for a while.
He ends up in the 7th West Indies Regt in 1807 (I think. This is a date I cannot remember). This I believe was to be with his brother Theo who apparently had a trading business in Tobago. There is a later letter from Theo stating that his brother William is very ill and needs to return home. It is not clear whom he was requesting assistance from and there is no address, but he addresses the recipient as 'my very dear friend' and it is clearly written to someone in the Army.
William returns to either England or Ireland. Maybe Ireland because there are several letters requesting employment with addresses in Dublin. These may be his address or his family or the person he used to write the letters.
William married Anne Turner of Kington Herefordshire (Presteigne) on 11 March 1811 and I have his license and certificate but no details are given except that he was over 21 and was a member of the Parish.
They had three male children. William, the eldest, was born in Palermo in Sicily in 1812 while his father was fighting with the 62nd Regt of Foot. This son became a surgeon in Kington and Isle of Man. The second son became a Rector and worked around Kington and Lilleshall for all his life, and the third, William Spettigue, was born after William's death. He married well and became a farmer in Lilleshall living in Penrhos Court. Two of the sons were involved in setting up the first Bank of Kington.
William died in March 1815 (Army lists) but I have no idea how or where.
William the surgeon married in Dublin to the daughter of a Captain Hatch. How he met her I have no idea but it makes me think there may be a connection with Ireland.
I had a great deal of help from the 'Wardrobe Museum of the 62nd Regt' from which a lot of these dates have come and for which I am very grateful. Now, however, I am stuck and do not know where to go. I had someone look into his applications for joining the Leics and the 62nd but without success.
