Читать книгу The Fatal Cup: Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and the strange deaths of his relations - John Price Williams - Страница 36

duty and of being the “scourge of the army”. The officers, it was said, were seldom if ever with their men. Abercromby was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1806 and bought his way to become a first lieutenant two years later, according to the Army Lists of the period.

Lieut. Abercromby served with a unit of the 6th Battalion Royal Artillery under the command of Captain Richard Dyas which had a strength of some 500 men - drivers, shoeing smiths, collar makers and veterinary surgeons. They had been for a number of years in Ireland, a fruitful source of supply for both men and horses, stationed mainly in Athlone, but on October 1st, 1811, they were re-deployed to Fermoy, where Wainewright was to serve.

Bateman Abercromby died suddenly that year, leaving Frances widowed a second time, with Bateman’s two small daughters, their step-sister Eliza, now 15, and her brother John, who appears to drop out of the Abercromby story at this stage, possibly dying as a child. His mother was now even worse off than she was before. Her two daughters by Abercromby had been left by their father “not one shilling to save them from the workhouse” as a court was to hear many years later.

She had some income from a bequest of her father, freehold and leasehold property in Mortlake, which produced about £100 a year in rent, but it was not enough. She appealed to the Board of Ordnance for help in bringing up Bateman’s two daughters and was granted an allowance of £10 a year for each until they were 21 years-old.

In the trials which were to follow, Lieut. Abercromby is several times described as a

THE FATAL CUP

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