Military Chat

George Bunyan, served in Army, born, 1845 in Bexley, Kent trained sergeants in 1901, at age 56.
How would I find his military record? Any ideas, please?

FMP has these records for him:

First name(s) GEORGE
Last name BUNYAN
Birth year 1845
Birth parish WOOLWICH
Birth town WOOLWICH
Birth county KENT
Birth country ENGLAND
Service number 1532
Rank -
Regiment Devonshire Regiment - 11th Foot
Document Type Attestation
Attestation year 1867
Attestation Day 11
Attestation Month 2
Attestation age years 22
Attestation age months 4
Attestation Corps 11th Foot
Attestation service number 1532
Discharge Corps 11th Foot
Series chelsea pensioners british army service records 1760-1913
Box 2406
Box Record Number 83
Record set British Army Service Records 1760-1915
Category Military, armed forces & conflict
Record collection Regimental & service records
Collections from Great Britain

he was a turner by trade, enlisted aged 22 years 4 months . Height 5ft 5in Fresh complexeion hazel eyes, dk brown hair.

Maried a woman named Selina Cawte Cosh in 1879 according to these records.

I'll pm you the images of his record.

Bit of background on here - to save duplicating research going through census etc.

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/ancestors/thread/1343658

Thank you so much for all the research you did for me. It means a great deal to me!

Marriage: 25 Dec 1879 St Mary the Virgin, Eccles, Lancashire, England
George Bunyan - 35, Colour Sergeant, Bachelor, Military Barracks Salford
Selina Cawley Cosh - 26, Spinster, 17 Shaftesbury St. Eccles
Groom's Father: James Bunyan, Gardener
Bride's Father: Charles Edward Cosh, Tailor
Witness: Samuel Robert Cosh; Sarah ?
Married by Banns by: John Harper, Curate
Notes: [Bride appears to have signed Selina Cawte Cosh]
Register: Marriages 1879 - 1882, Page 20, Entry 40
Source: Manchester Central Library

Thank you so much ! I was trying to research the parish records in Eccles and I thought there was just on church there. Now I know why I am a gardener and designer! :-)

It's always worth supplementing the GRO index from, say, http://www.freebmd.org.uk/ with the local index if one is available online, see:
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/local_bmd
In particular, with http://www.lancashirebmd.org.uk/

Lancashire Marriage indexes for the years: 1879
Surname Forename(s) Surname Forename(s) Church / Register Office Registers At Reference
BUNYAN George COSH Selina Eccles Parish St Mary's Salford C1/25/40

Lancashire Birth indexes for the years: 1880
Surname Forename(s) Sub-District Registers At Mother's Maiden Name Reference
BUNYON Selina Violet Broughton Preston COSH BRO/21/27

So in this case, the local index has info not in the GRO index



For many parish records from the historic county of Lancs, go to:
http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/ and click on parishes, then the one of interest, e.g.,
http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Salford/Eccles/stmary/index.html
This was where Safc's hit came from, and the following:

St Mary the Virgin, Church Street, Eccles, M30 7LP
St Mary the Virgin is located at OS Grid Reference - SJ 778986
The parish church has stood on the same site for at least 800 years.

You can go to http://www.streetmap.co.uk/ and search for SJ778986
It takes you to some URL, and embedded in the URL are the old style coordinates for the arrowhead, viz:
x=377850&y=398650 - Since the original coords were only to 100 metres precision, it's put the arrowhead in the centre of the 100m x 100m square with the searched coords at its SW corner.


There's a couple of things you can do now:

1) Go to http://www.old-maps.co.uk/index.html and search for the coords 377850,398650
There's a couple of 1890's maps - the very large scale 1:500 town plans, and the more typical 1:2500 scale - the 6" maps (1:10560) are really too small scale, I find.
If it's a bit off, you can adjust the easting or northing E.g., to centre the plans on Castle St 70m to W, I decrease the easting to 377780.

2) Go to http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/SJ7798
This has user contributed photos taken in the 1km x 1km square SJ 77 98 Amongst the 102 pics, there's several of the church, e.g.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/406644
The bumph on this page gives photo & object locations, and an inset map of the square - the blue grid lines are 1km apart.

Thank you, but I was able to locate St. Mary's church in Eccles. I have located the marriage registration. Thank you so much!