PRIVATE (LATER SERGEANT) CHARLES LENNON, BENGAL EUROPEAN REGIMENT (THE POST 1860 101ST ROY

PRIVATE (LATER SERGEANT) CHARLES LENNON, BENGAL EUROPEAN REGIMENT (THE POST 1860 101ST ROYAL BENGAL FUSILIERS REGIMENT, WHICH IN 1881 BECAME THE 1ST BATTALION ROYAL MUNSTER FUSILIERS). PRIOR TO SEEING SERVICE WITH THE BENGAL EUROPEAN REGIMENT, LENNON SAW SERVICE WITH THE 101ST (DUKE OF YORK’S IRISH) REGIMENT OF FOOT. Army of India Medal 1803-1826, 1 clasp, Bhurtpoor (officially impressed in serifed block capitals: CHAs. LENNON, EUR. REGt.). Extremely Fine.

Army of India Medals with the Bhurtpoor clasp to the Bengal European Regiment are seldom offered for sale.

Medal accompanied by 101st Foot enlistment record (1815), Chelsea Pension record and copied extract published medal roll, confirming medal and clasp.

Charles Lennon was born in Belfast, Co. Antrim. He enlisted into the 101st (Duke of York’s Irish) Regiment at Glasgow on 27/6/1815. At the time of enlistment he was 30 years of age and gave his trade as that of labourer. Lennon was apparently illiterate, signing the enlistment and attestation roll with his mark, an X. The 101st (Duke of York’s Irish) Regiment was disbanded in 1817 as a result of the army reduction following the end of the Napoleonic wars. Lennon subsequently enlisted in the East India Company’s army, being posted for service with the Bengal European Regiment. He was discharged from the Bengal European Regiment in 1830 and was granted a Chelsea Out-Pension on 11/8/1830. Lennon’s pension payments were transferred to the Dublin No. 1 District on 26/12/1848. Pension records confirm that, immediately prior to being granted a pension, Lennon had been serving as a Sergeant in the Bengal Infantry.

The 101st (Duke of York’s Irish) Regiment was the fourth regiment to be numbered 101st, the three other regiments allocated that regimental number being disbanded in 1763, 1783 and 1795. The regiment was originally raised following the grant of a Royal warrant to raise a regiment of foot issued to the Honourable Augustus Dillon, in 1805 (Dillon had previously seen service in the French army with the Catholic Irish Brigade from 1792 to 1798). The regiment was initially raised in Ireland but later also recruited men from throughout the United Kingdom. Dillon’s 101st Regiment was one of the last regiments in the British army to be raised by the granting of a Royal Warrant to a private individual to do so. The regiment was stationed in Jamaica when Lennon enlisted but returned to England in detachments during 1816 and 1817 and was disbanded on 7/1/1817.

The European regiments of the East India Company, the Bengal, Madras and Bombay European Regiments, transferred to the British Army in 1858, following the end of the Indian Mutiny, the three former East India Company’s European regiments being numbered the 101st, 102nd and 103rd Regiments of Foot respectively. Coincidentally, in 1858 the Bengal European Regiment were granted the same regimental number as the entirely different regiment that Lennon had enlisted into in 1815.