Friday 27 November 2015

Limerick and Clare men in the Bombay Army

Brian Hodkinson, acting curator of Limerick Museum, has advised Irish Genealogy News of another research aid he's recently created and uploaded to the growing Local History Resources section of Limerick.ie.

It's a list of the Limerick and Clare soldiers who fought in the Bombay Army of the East India Company, 1739–1860. With information gleaned from the FIBIS database, The list comprises around 850 men and may include such details as residence in Ireland, prior occupation, date joined up, rank and regiment, types of injury, where and when of death, if pensioned off, and details of a family member beneficiary to the soldiern's will.

The alphabetically arranged list explains that different levels of information were recorded at different times, so while a town or townland of origin may be noted in later entries, only a county of residence was initially recorded. Similarly, former occupations were not recorded in the early days.

Brian stresses that the list is intended as a search aid and not every bit of information available at FIBIS is included. For example, in the case of soldiers who left a will, the name of the beneficiary is included in the list only if he/she was a family member.

You can download this list from the Research Aids page.