General Chat

Did I see someone the other day posted something about navy pensioners in the early C19th? Only I might have found one now so it could help me:)

Hello Uggers. I didn't see it. Is he a Chelsea pensioner?

Hello:) No, the chap who might or might not be mine was a Greenwich Pensioner. Blue coats apparently...

Oh ok - dope that I am, I googled after asking and the Greenwich records are at the NA.

I think FindMyPast has them too ... or is that Chelsea? ;)


Yes, drat. Chelsea.

http://www.findmypast.co.uk/helpadvice/knowledge-base/overseas-military/cheps.jsp

Thanks Janey but no, they don't.

Sorry for asking such a daft question, just googled Greenwich Pensioner (as never heard of them) before.

My ancestor, if he stayed in the Navy may have become a Greenwich pensioner but he didn't sign up again and joined the army instead hence he became a Chelsea Pensioner.

Nor had I, SRS til I came across him:)

In 1871 my great-great-grandfather was a Greenwich pensioner, in Fareham.

I was told this by someone a few years ago about Greenwich pensioners:

Aims of the Greenwich Hospital Charter: The principal aims of the charter, dated 25th October 1694, were:
1. The relief and support of seamen serving on board ...ships.. belonging to the Royal Navy ...who by reason of age, wounds or other disabilities ...shall be...incapable of further service and unable to maintain themselves.
2. The sustentation of the widows of seamen.
3. The maintenance and education of children of seamen.

Lots of information here about the National Archives holdings on Royal Navy pensioners

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=41

Antiques Roadshow recently came from Greenwich Maritime Museum and they were on about the brewery which ran a line through to the pensioners quarters. So they had pensioners there.

Thanks very much Joy Ann and Chris:)

Well, you sent me off on the trail of an ancestor I suspected of being a Chelsea Pensioner in 1851. ;)

Some hours later, it seems likely that one wasn't my ancestor (mine was in fact identified as "soldier" on his daughter's 1850s marriage certificate) -- mine was certainly dead by 1841 -- but I've pretty much determined who he was and who his parents and siblings and other child were! So that got me back from an 1826 birth to a 1796 birth and 1791 marriage, in a line I hadn't paid a lot of attention to previously.

Good job, Uggers!

(I meant to say mine *was* a Chelsea Pensioner, it seems, just not the one I thought he was, and MaureenNY and Tracey kindly offered to send me the images of his discharge records, which I found on a search of those FMP records, since I don't pay there, and I am just now perusing them.)

Oh that's wonderful JC :)

Uggers have you managed to find anything yet? :)