Letters from Waterloo set to go under the hammer

7:03pm Monday 13th October 2008

A series of letters home from a Bradford soldier who served with the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo have surfaced at auction after 193 years.

Regimental Sergeant Thomas Barlow of the King’s Dragoon Guards was one of only 15 men from his regiment to remain in action at the end of one of the most famous battles in British history.

His water-stained, hard-to-read letters, many cross-written because of a shortage of paper, were sent to his “Dear and Loving Wife” Betsey, addressed simply care of “Mrs Reids (sic), Bradford, Yorkshire”.

Cataloguers at Bonhams in London, where the 12 letters are expected to fetch up to £6,000 in November after surfacing at the home of a Yorkshire vendor, believe Mrs Reid might have been a landlady so well known a more detailed address was unnecessary.

On June 23, 1815, from his “Bivouack near Cateau”, Barlow writes: “Excuse haste – a Battle was fought on the 18th inst. a complete victory gained.

“We have followed the French Army so quick I could not write before – the King’s Dragoon Guards was most seriously engaged.

“Colonel Fuller, Major Graham, Major Bringhurst, Capt Vattersby, Lt Brooke, Cornet Bernard – Adjt. Shelver were Killed – Capt Turner seriously wounded.

“Captain Irving slightly – Thank God I escaped safe, we have lost a great many men.”

In Barlow’s next letter, written on July 4, he gives an extremely full account of the battle.

He wrote: “I scarcely know how to begin my Letter, or to describe to you what I feel.

“First, let me return thanks to Almighty God who has spared me to the present moment and preserved me on one of the most dreadful Battles that was ever fought; for Twelve hours... I was either exposed to the Enemy’s Cannonading or Engaging the Enemys Cavalry...”

The letters are being sold with a note of provenance by his son, who was given the letters in 1870.

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