Diss Family History Group

William Holden’s connection to South Lopham is by birth. This soldier is proving to be very difficult to identify and to discover who his family was and hence find further details about him. All information to date has come from a “UK, Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioner Soldier Service Records, 1760-1920” on Ancestry (Fold3).

From the rest of the document above it shows William’s service was cut short by a disease contracted whilst in service and was not attributable to ‘neglect, design, vice or intemperance or constitutional disease’. The disease was ‘affection of chest with scrofulous abscesses in back’. It also said he had ‘regular habits’! The Regimental Board who considered William’s case found him to have been of good character as a soldier, trustworthy and sober, and the Principal Medical Officer deemed him unfit for military duties. On discharge he was 23 years of age, 5 feet 8¼ inches in height, light brown hair, grey eyes, fresh complexion. On his discharge record is said that he intended to reside at Diss.

[In 1838, the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards was sent to Quebec, Canada, to help put down the Lower Canada Rebellion and secure the British North American colonies against unrest. During this deployment, the battalion became famously associated with “Jacob the Goose,” a pet bird saved from a fox that later helped alert sentries to a rebel attack. Was this possibly where William served in North America?]

If anyone can help identify any of William’s family then we would be most grateful to hear from you.