D'onston On Garibaldi Muster Roll-Facsimile

[How Brown]

The excerpt from the 1859 British Legion Muster Roll mentioning D'Onston...who was actually 18 years old at the time.

This is a 149 year old reference and the oldest known document other than the 1851 and 1841 censuses that his name appears on...yet.

[Mike Covell]

Originally Posted by How Brown

The excerpt from the 1859 British Legion Muster Roll mentioning D'Onston...who was actually 18 years old at the time.

This is a 149 year old reference and the oldest known document other than the 1851 and 1841 censuses that his name appears on...yet.

It's intresting that it says "Drilled" which has been crossed out, I know for a fact that Richard, his brother was involved in the military in Hull on a voluntary level, recent findings just yesteraday may go someway in proving RDS was a member alongside Richard.

I will hat the birth sert on monday, rewriting history and being the oldest known document with his name on.

Efforts have been made to secure his christening cert, and his parents marriage cert.

[Chris G.]

Originally Posted by Mike Covell

It's intresting that it says "Drilled" which has been crossed out, I know for a fact that Richard, his brother was involved in the military in Hull on a voluntary level, recent findings just yesteraday may go someway in proving RDS was a member alongside Richard.

I will hat the birth sert on monday, rewriting history and being the oldest known document with his name on.

Efforts have been made to secure his christening cert, and his parents marriage cert.

Hi Mike

The detail that Stephenson may have been "Drilled" back in Hull would have been significant for the British Legion -- they would know they were not getting an an absolutely raw recruit.

Chris

[How Brown]

Monsieur George:

But since the "drilled" part is crossed out, does that lead you to believe that he:

A. Was previously thought to be "drilled" and then the listing was corrected?
B. Was "drilled" and its been "highlighted" in a mid-19th century way?
C. Wasn't drilled and this has been duly noted, if the other volunteers had been drilled and the ones who had not been drilled were singled out.

[Mike Covell]

Originally Posted by How Brown

Monsieur George:

But since the "drilled" part is crossed out, does that lead you to believe that he:

A. Was previously thought to be "drilled" and then the listing was corrected?
B. Was "drilled" and its been "highlighted" in a mid-19th century way?
C. Wasn't drilled and this has been duly noted, if the other volunteers had been drilled and the ones who had not been drilled were singled out.

I would go with a mixture of A and B,

I believe RDS lied and stated he was "Drilled", after all Richard was a seargent and later an Ensign with the East Yorks Rifle Volunteers RDS could have picked this up and used it to his own advantage.

Perhaps then he was tested and failed, "Drilled" thus being crossed out!!

I don't see "Drilled" on any other entries on this sheet.

[Chris G.]

Originally Posted by How Brown

Monsieur George:

But since the "drilled" part is crossed out, does that lead you to believe that he:

A. Was previously thought to be "drilled" and then the listing was corrected?
B. Was "drilled" and its been "highlighted" in a mid-19th century way?
C. Wasn't drilled and this has been duly noted, if the other volunteers had been drilled and the ones who had not been drilled were singled out.

Hello Howard

Of course I don't know if Robert D'O Stephenson was actually "drilled" or not, although I will note that the "drilled" remark gets crossed out with the address "Culcoates [Sculcoates] Hull" to alter it to the Islington, London, address, which doesn't necessarily negate or deny that he was in fact "drilled" as a member of a volunteer rifle company while in Hull with his brother Richard Stephenson.

I made the point to Mike that brothers sometimes adopt the biography of their siblings, which appears to be the case with Edgar Allan Poe, who used the somewhat fantastic biography of his elder brother, Henry, who claimed to have travelled to St. Petersburg, Russia. It's probable that E. A. Poe never went there and most biographers view the claim as "mythical." As one biographer described it he claimed to have attempted to join "the insurgent Greeks, [but] ended [up] at St. Petersburg, where he got into difficulties through want of a passport, from which he was rescued by the American consul and sent home." The Greek War of Independence took place 1821-1829 and of course was romanticized by Lord Byron. So that romanticism was a reason why Poe would have laid claim to some identification with it, much as D'Onston seems to have laid claim to have a hand in Garibaldi's revolution.

Originally Posted by Mike Covell

It's intresting that it says "Drilled" which has been crossed out, I know for a fact that Richard, his brother was involved in the military in Hull on a voluntary level, recent findings just yesteraday may go someway in proving RDS was a member alongside Richard.

I will hat the birth sert on monday, rewriting history and being the oldest known document with his name on.

Efforts have been made to secure his christening cert, and his parents marriage cert.

We need to be careful of course with the characterization that this was "the military." Of course, they were just organized civilians, which implied different levels of discipline and organization. The professional military generally looked down on volunteer units.

There are a large number of eighteenth and nineteenth century cartoons making fun of the amateurishness of such volunteer militia. The following cartoon from the American Civil War (1861-1865) is an example. The Hull volunteer rifles might have been highly organized, or not, depending on the arrangement of the unit before the Stephenson(s) joined, and also the competence of the commanding officers.

Chris

[How Brown]

Out of the mouths of Ripperologist editors !!

Excellent observation, C.G.....I admit I hadn't thought of that concept before about the example of Poe ( whose house Nina and I just recently visited in Philadelphia ) and Byron....and juxtaposed RDS & Garibaldi to it.

Not only does that have a lot of meat on it,so to speak, but we now know that Stephenson plagiarized the Lytton work, "The Last Days of Pompeii", imitating or emulating one of his boyhood idols....as well,of course, imitating H.Rider Haggard's works. Poe would have been 20 in 1829, which was roughly the same age as Stephenson was in 1860 ( He would have been 19 ).

Thanks for sharing this Chris. Its much appreciated.

[Chris G.]

Hi Howard

Thanks, Howard. Glad to know you and Nina had the chance to visit Poe's house in Philadelphia. It's one of the Poe locations I have on my list of things "to do." As you probably know, he lived up and down the East Coast, born in Boston in 1809 where his actor parents, Baltimore-born father David Poe Jr. and mother, English-born Elizabeth Arnold Poe were appearing. On his mother's death and his father's disappearance, he was adopted by Richmond tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife. Apart from a visit during his boyhood to Britain, when he was for some time at Rev. Dr. Bransby's boarding school in Stoke Newington, London, the experience of which he used in his short story "William Wilson", he appears never to have been out of the United States. His autobiography does seem, as noted, embroidered with the reference to his attempt to join the Greeks in the struggle for their independence, so there is that resemblance to Stephenson's biography, both claiming to have had a desire to engage in a romantic overseas adventure fitting to a young man.

Chris

[GCW]

Hi How,
Thanks for posting the Muster Roll scan – I am a bit perplexed by the 1859date though.

I’m assuming that this is the muster contained within the Holyoake papers in the Bishopsgate Institute. If this is the case then the date should be 1860 rather than 1859. Holyoake by his own word indicates that the concept of sending a British Legion to Italy was developed in 1860 with Holyoake becoming Acting Secretary of the Garibaldi Special Fund Committee in that year. Recruitment through newspaper advertisements began about the middle of 1860 (July?) with the excursionists sailing from Harwich for Palermo by the Melazzo in September 1860.

Just a minor point I know.

I've also been looking at some of the accounts of the exploits of the Legion and unlike the descriptions in Melvin Harris' work it looks like this comes down to a single skirmish. Garibaldi damned them with faint praise in a letter to W. H. Ashurst:
"CAPRERA Jan. 26, 1861.
" … They [the British Legion] came late. But they made ample amends for this defect, not their own, by the brilliant courage they displayed in the slight engagements they shared with us near the Volturno, which enabled me to judge how precious an assistance they would have rendered us had the war of liberation remained longer in my hands. In every way the English volunteers were a proof of the goodwill borne by your noble nation towards the liberty and independence of Italy.

Accept, honoured Mr. Ashurst, the earnest assurance of my grateful friendship, and always command yours,
"G. GARIBALDI."

The Legion didn't take part in the battle of Volturno in October 1860 but in a skirmish some time after the main action. I have read another Italian account that suggested that Garibaldi was glad to be rid of them. There also seemed to be a propensity for members of the Legion to promote themselves to officer rank and have I've come across four instances where this was the case - so RDS was not alone in post-bellum promotion, although he did maintain some restraint by only achieving the rank of Major.

Graham W.

[Mike Covell]

Hi Graham,

I read several "Garibaldi" related books during researching Stephenson and all showed the British volunteers in quite a bad light.

They refused to leave the ship when they finally got there, then they got blind drunk, then they refused to come home!!

Robert D'Onston Stephenson and Dates never make any sense!!