By S.Q.M.C. FREARSON
Royal Horse Guards (The Blues)
HOUSED in the selfsame showcase in the Household Cavalry Museum, the propinquity of the sword of the Iron Duke to the Waterloo medal of Trooper Thomas Evans (1781-1859), possibly affords posthumous pleasure to at least one of these old warriors. Nearby them, the Waterloo service coat of Tom's Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Robert Chambre Hill (1778-1860), indicates that Sir Robert was a man of slender build, an observation which is confirmed by the A. E. Chalon miniature of Sir Robert made when he was a young Captain, circa 1800.
Miniature of Capt. Sir Robert Chambre Hill (1778-1860)
byAlfred Edward Chalon circa 1800This miniature shows a serious faced young man, not too fastidious about appearance, as witness the tousled hair; he seems to be an officer who drank claret by preference and port under protest, and had always the best interests of the Regiment at heart. Indeed, Sir Robert's two brothers rose to fame on the staff of the Duke of Wellington, whereas he served for twenty-nine years in the Blues, which Regiment he commanded for over ten years.
Service coat and helmet worn by
Lieut.-Colonel Sir Robert Chambre Hill at the Battle of Waterloo.
Given to the Household Cavalry Museum by Miss Emily C. Hill, his great-great-granddaughter.
The photograph of Tom Evans, shows him in late middle age and still careful about his appearance; his hair is almost too carefully brushed. Above the powerful shoulders, the handsome face looks disdainfully at the new-fangled "photographic machine"—a compound of Jeeves and John Bull.
Thomas Evans in middle age From a photograph in the Guildhall Museum, Windsor.
Tom served for twenty years in the Blues and retired, still a Trooper. This is the story of Colonel Sir Robert and Trooper Evans, but it is the Trooper who plays the dominant role.
Tom Evans 'listed in the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards on 24th October, 1800, aged nineteen and standing half an inch over six feet. He gave his occupation as "cordwainer," characteristically scorning the term "shoemaker." He had been born and bred in the tiny Northamptonshire village of Collingtree and was doubtlessly recruited there, since Troops of the Blues were in the town of Northampton at the time.
As a Trooper, Tom considered himself well paid at the rate of ls. a day "subsistence" and 6 3/4d. "clearings" for laundry, clothing and equipment.
Charges for rations were made from "subsistence," but then again, strong ale was 3 1/2d. a quart. There was not very much free time to enjoy such luxuries since Troopers of the Blues worked until "evening stables" at 7 p.m. and had to be in quarters by 9.15 p.m. All candles and fires were extinguished by 10 p.m. They wore great cocked hats, the loss of which incurred a penalty of two extra drills. Loss of a cockade was paid for by one extra drill.
Nonetheless, it seems to have been a happy Regiment, and never more so than when His Majesty King George III brought the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards to Windsor in the year 1804 and showed them all marks of Royal favour. At this time, the Regiment held Field Days on Winkfield Plain, and so it seems, during the course of one such day, Tom fell in love with a bright-eyed girl at Winkfield, Miss Jane Broughton, thereafter spending much of his free time marching over the open fields around Barracks, to visit his sweetheart.
On 10th November, 1812, the Regiment sailed from Portsmouth for Portugal and Spain, and Tom with them. Held up by storms, they landed in the Tagus the day before Christmas Eve, 1812. They crossed the Douro 4th June, 1813, and fought at Vittoria on 21st of the same month. Maybe because of the peasant bread or perhaps because of the cheap wine, Tom grew even heftier and when, after his return to Windsor in July, 1814, he showed Miss Jane Broughton the splendid Peninsular medal with its two clasps, her bright eyes noted, "My ! Tom Evans, how you've put on weight in those foreign parts."
Miss Broughton's bright eyes were not alone as witnesses of Tom's increased bulk, for the keen eye of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Robert Chambre Hill had noticed the very same thing, so that when in April, 1815, orders were received to "March for Foreign Service," Sir Robert decided that Tom Evans would be left behind in England on account of being overweight.
Tom Evans was most indignant. Examine the face in the photograph and imagine how indignant Tom could be, and then imagine Regimental Corporal-Major Bell marching Trooper Evans into the presence of the Commanding Officer. Now Sir Robert Chambre Hill was a very wise officer and held his "Orderly Hour" at 2 p.m., a time of day at which, fortified with a good old English lunch and the odd glass of claret, any Commanding Officer is likely to show greater wisdom and patience than one who administers "regimental justice at 12 noon."
Tom stated to Sir Robert that if he could not march with his Regiment as a "regular," then he would follow them as a "volunteer," and Sir Robert being a good old English gentleman, and having the best interests of the Regiment at heart, said, "March for Foreign Service he would—march out !"
After a night of rain and electric storms, the British army rose from such repose as could be enjoyed in the open on a muddy Flanders ridge. It was Sunday, 18th June, 1815, and Waterloo was still no more than a rudely painted name on a Flemish signpost. The sun came out and dried the wet, shoddy uniforms that absent artists would later depict in all the finery of a Review in Windsor Park. Towards noon, the familiar sounds of camp life had changed to the roar of a French army in attack. By 2 o'clock, the sound of battle was closer to the ridge, a vast ocean of sounds of batteries, small arms, hooves, drums, trumpets, bugles and thousands of human voices raised in screams of hatred, fear and agony.
To this accompaniment, the Household Heavy Brigade trotted forward to the crest of the ridge, and there, the first line, 1st and 2nd Life Guards saw the foe, a broad, straight line of shiny Cuirassiers of the Guard, galloping up the ridge over the mangled remains of British and Hanoverian batteries and infantry.
The Heavy Brigade charged; there followed an almighty clash, which halted the French, and then rolled them back. Their line broken, the Cuirassiers fell into disorder and from disorder to headlong flight right and left of the Brussels-Charleroi road, with 1st and 2nd Life Guards in pursuit.
Sir Robert Chambre Hill, who had brought the steady line of Blues from 2nd and 1st charging line, looked left and right and saw the victorious Heavy Brigade's flanks opening out at the gallop and brought the Blues into the breach.
Somewhere at this stage, Sir Robert, well out in front of his Regiment found himself surrounded by a remnant of five Cuirassiers and was wounded in the sword arm by a pistol ball. A hefty Trooper of the Blues galloped out of the line and with all the might of a Northamptonshire cordwainer's right arm, cleft four Cuirassiers from their saddles, aimed a blow at the bridle arm of the fifth, shattered his sword on the Frenchman's cuirass, and struck again so that his broken blade came out at the hilt. Then Tom Evans led Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Robert Chambre Hill back to the ridge. Both men were still alive when, at sunset, the French army was in full flight and 50,000 corpses lay on the Plain of Waterloo.
At Windsor in the Riding School in the following year, the Colonel acknowledged Tom Evans's valour at the head of the Regiment. On 21st October, 1817, at Winkfield Parish Church, Tom Evans and Jane Broughton were married and on 4th July, 1820, Tom ended his service with the Oxford Blues, and went as Drill Instructor to the Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire Cavalry.
He continued for nine years, with this Yeomanry Regiment, until Jane and he grew homesick for the Berkshire landscape in which they had courted.
In 1829, Tom and Jane became landlord and landlady of that neat and well conducted inn, "The Oxford Blue" on Crimp Hill Road at Old Windsor, where at any time during the next thirty years, favoured customers might be shown the dignified old gentleman's Peninsular and Waterloo medals, and I've no doubt that the name of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Robert Chambre Hill would be mentioned quite often.
Tom fought his last great battle on 17th January, 1859, and aged 78, he was laid to rest in OId Windsor churchyard, with military honours, by the 2nd Regiment of Life Guards. He left a widow and three grown sons and a daughter.
Sir Robert, who retired in 1823, lived to the ripe old age of 82. He died a year after his erstwhile rescuer and kept his old Waterloo service coat in a glass fronted case in the library of his home at -Prees Hall in Shropshire. He probably recalled Trooper Evans and told much the story told here, which I somehow feel, in justice to a good yarn, ought to end like this:
One evening, old Sir Robert was sitting in the library of his home, the candles were lit and his butler, Edward Edwards, had brought a book for the old gentleman to read. Sir Robert's finger pointed his place as he read. Something he read seemed to amuse him. He chuckled to himself and dozed off, the book on his lap. Edwards wondered what had so amused his master and looking over the shoulder of the sleeping, grey haired old man, Edwards read the line which the finger still pointed.
"Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek headed men, and such as sleep o'nights."
The Oxford Blue Public House at Old Windsor as it is today
Extracted from The Household Brigade Magazine Winter 1965/66