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I Need Help - British Napoleonic Regiment of Foot Figures??


mhaselden

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On 9/29/2020 at 9:57 PM, mhaselden said:

My friends have said for years that I need help...and this thread will prove it.  Back in my long-distant days of youth, I built a few Airfix 54mm figures (British Grenadier from the American War of Independence, Napoleonic Hussar, Bengal Lancer etc).  Unexpectedly, I have a renewed interest in this modelling genre but need some up-to-date advice.

 

I recently discovered that one of my Great (x3) Grandfathers was in the 47th Regiment of Foot, serving in the 2nd Battalion during the Peninsula War and, when the 2nd Battalion was disbanded, in India, to include the First Anglo-Burmese War.

 

So...after that long preamble, are there any good kits I can use to represent a soldier of the 47th Foot in Spain?  Since this is my first foray into figure modelling in almost 40 years, I'd appreciate any help/advice from the cognoscenti here.


Many thanks,
Mark

Google Historex Agents, they have a website which has a very extensive selection of figures, not just Napoleonic. If you contact them they should be able to help you.

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2 hours ago, Black Knight said:

Interesting

Now here's a googly for you.

The idea of a medal for being at a certain battle was a very new idea

It was only given to those who applied in writing, with proof they were at the battle and the application had to be approved by a senior officer who was at that battle

It was the same process for getting a wounded-in-battle allowance or pension

except, the man wanting the medal had to pay  for it after it was allowed he could get it, afair it could cost up to £1 ~ thats about 10 days pay

But,

a. not a lot of the men desired to get the medal, especially as they had to pay for something which was of no use to them afterwards.

b. not a lot of officers signed off on the applications. Being a new concept they saw no need for a man to have a 'medal'

It was later as time went on the medal turned from being a commemorative medallion to something awarded for merit or bravery

 

 

Oh how I love a good googly when I'm researching something...it's always a pleasure to have one's well-crafted assumptions come crashing down around one's ears! :)

 

I'm intrigued that soldiers had to apply in writing for their medal (and then pay for the privilege of receiving it), not least because my Great x3 Grandfather appears to have been illiterate.  He signed his marriage record in 1832 with an "X" so, unless he learned to write after moving back to Warrington, I wonder how he would have heard about the opportunity to request his medal, and then to apply for it?  I also  wonder how many of the men on these lists actually received their medals?  

 

To add to the confusion, I found a separate list on Ancestry that includes all the men from the first list but with an extra 40+ names with medal records.  The new tally for clasps looks something like this across the new total of 97 names (which is a tad more respectable):

Barrosa: 48

Vitoria: 80

San Sebastian: 80 (-1)

Nivelle: 24 (-3)

Nive: 37 (-2)

 

Four names in the new list have different medal totals than in the original list.  The deltas are indicated by the numbers in parentheses which should be subtracted from the totals if the numbers in the original list are correct.

 

We still have a similar disparity between Nivelle and the earlier battles that involved the entire Battalion, although the it isn't quite as bad as it was in the original data.  We also have a similar uptick in clasp claims for the Battle of the Nive, so my hypothesis that some soldiers wounded at San Sebastian were returning to their companies for the last battle still appears to be valid.  

 

Some of the other statistics from the previous count also hold for this expanded dataset.  There is still a strong correlation of Nivelle clasp awardees also being awarded clasps for Vitoria and San Sebastian (there's one soldier with a Nivelle clasp who didn't get a clasp for Vitoria.  With a few exceptions, the correlation of Nive clasp awardees to Vitoria/San Sebastian awardees also still holds true (in the expanded list, there's one soldier with a Nive clasp who didn't get any other clasps, and 2 others with just the San Sebastian clasp but no Vitoria clasp).  

 

We now have 8 soldiers being awarded all 5 clasps, although 2 of those fall into the discrepancies pile, so it may just be 6 soldiers with all 5 clasps.  Intriguingly, for recipients of 4 clasps, the pattern seen in the original list is repeated exactly: soldiers with 4 clasps had Vitoria, San Sebastian and Nive and then either Barrosa or Nivelle (but never Barrosa and Nivelle together with 2 other clasps).  

Edited by mhaselden
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14 minutes ago, mhaselden said:

 

. . .  not least because my Great x3 Grandfather appears to have been illiterate.  He signed his marriage record in 1832 with an "X" so, unless he learned to write after moving back to Warrington, . . .

Simple,  Up to fairly recently there was a trade called 'scrivener'. This was/is a person who could read and write. Illiterate folk went to them and for a small fee, or nowt if they were a member of their community, the scrivener would read their letters, write reply letters, fill in forms. The last time I came across an actual scrivener, earning her living from this, was about 2005.

Scriveners also did copy work. Before the days of the cheap photocopier, they copied documents, especially legal ones. And as far as I know government legal documents are still copied by hand by a scrivener

 

20 minutes ago, mhaselden said:

. . . I wonder how he would have heard about the opportunity to request his medal, and then to apply for it? . . . 

Old soldiers always have their own grape-vine for news and as your ancestor was still in the military word would have got around quickly

 

22 minutes ago, mhaselden said:

. . .  I also  wonder how many of the men on these lists actually received their medals?  . . . 

I would think all of them, thats why there is a list

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1 hour ago, Black Knight said:

Looking at your break down of clasps two things come to mind

1. venn diagrams in school maths classes  :blink:

2. those logic problems in the puzzle books  :hmmm:

 

:D

 

Yeah..."A group of 97 soldiers have a total of 296 clasps.  The soldiers have a variable number of clasps from 1 to 5.  If 80 soldiers each have 2 clasps...."  Sorry, I can't go on without therapy. :)

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The 47th foot had buttons in pairs with square ended braid. Any of these figures would do: https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/the-square-52nd-regiment-waterloo-carl-reid.274004.

They are wearing the stovepipe shako which preceeded the Belgic shako (which was introduced in 1812) and the shakos have a bugle on the front, which might be applicable for the light company of the 44th.

 

Good luck,

 

Mike

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13 hours ago, Mike W said:

and the shakos have a bugle on the front, which might be applicable for the light company of the 44th.

Bugles are certainly specific to the Light Company 👍

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On 10/11/2020 at 4:51 PM, Black Knight said:

Simple,  Up to fairly recently there was a trade called 'scrivener'. This was/is a person who could read and write. Illiterate folk went to them and for a small fee, or nowt if they were a member of their community, the scrivener would read their letters, write reply letters, fill in forms. The last time I came across an actual scrivener, earning her living from this, was about 2005.

Scriveners also did copy work. Before the days of the cheap photocopier, they copied documents, especially legal ones. And as far as I know government legal documents are still copied by hand by a scrivener

 

Old soldiers always have their own grape-vine for news and as your ancestor was still in the military word would have got around quickly

 

I would think all of them, thats why there is a list

 

Well, it seems you're right in all the above.  Ir seems that Samuel's medals have survived.  They were apparently sold at auction a number of years ago.  Maybe one day I'll be able to track them down and bring them back into the family.

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On 10/13/2020 at 10:24 AM, Mike W said:

The 47th foot had buttons in pairs with square ended braid. Any of these figures would do: https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/the-square-52nd-regiment-waterloo-carl-reid.274004.

They are wearing the stovepipe shako which preceeded the Belgic shako (which was introduced in 1812) and the shakos have a bugle on the front, which might be applicable for the light company of the 44th.

 

Good luck,

 

Mike

 

Hi Mike,

 

Those do look like beautifully sculpted figures.  Shame that the figures are still wearing their packs despite being in combat poses.  However, they could easily be a good starting point for a conversion to a 47th Foot soldier.

 

Many thanks for the pointer.

 

Kind regards,

Mark

 

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Managed to resolve one other problem, thanks to a kind gent from the Napoleonic Wars Forum.  It seems that the flank companies were already at Tarifa before the 8 centre companies arrived there.  Thus the entire 2/47th was at Tarifa and, therefore, it seems likely that Samuel was there.  I'm also thinking he was with the force that sailed from Cadiz in the abortive reinforcement of Tarragona.  Again, it would be logical, although I have no formal evidence either way.  The muster rolls are frustratingly unhelpful in that regard.

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  • 1 year later...
On 10/13/2020 at 2:24 AM, Mike W said:

The 47th foot had buttons in pairs with square ended braid. Any of these figures would do: https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/the-square-52nd-regiment-waterloo-carl-reid.274004.

They are wearing the stovepipe shako which preceeded the Belgic shako (which was introduced in 1812) and the shakos have a bugle on the front, which might be applicable for the light company of the 44th.

 

Good luck,

 

Mike

 

Resurrecting this rather old thread because I ended up going with one of the standing figures from the above-listed set.  I'll still have to remove the light company accoutrements but the quality of the moulding and the larger 75mm scale sold me on this product.

 

Having never worked on a resin figure before, are there any gotchas/Pooh traps that I need to look out for?

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 Cant think of any 'traps',  just the usual health precautions when dealing with resin.   I like using two part putty called  Green Stuff to fill in gaps and air bubbles if any.  The product has a two hour working period, and is very easy to smooth out with a little water on the fingertip.  Utilizing this approach can result in very little to no sanding afterwards once cured.

 

regards,

Jack

Edited by JackG
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On 10/17/2020 at 9:09 PM, Black Knight said:

Unless you have definite proof either way, just go with the logical assumption

Thats what I do.

Its what has to be done sometimes

Indeed, I was trying to follow the journey of my Great Grandfather during the 14-18 War.  518th FC RE.  I tracked through the Company War diary from the start of 1916 (he volunteered Nov 1915) and eventually found him named in the diary going on leave to the UK in September 1918....  

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10 hours ago, mhaselden said:

Having never worked on a resin figure before, are there any gotchas/Pooh traps that I need to look out for?

I like to dill and pin any arm or leg joints. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate as I also like use plastic soup as the glue.

Plastic Soup is a gloopy plastic made by dissolving waste polystyrene plastic in liquid polystyrene glue. The thicker you make it the faster it dries but it still takes about 24 hours to dry and harden. Its an excellent gap filler on joints. You can start cutting off the excess as soon as the P/S has started to harden, when its like butter out of the fridge

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Thanks for the tips, JackG and Black Knight.  The part I'm most nervous about is painting.  Having mostly built aircraft kits in the past, I moved to acrylic paints some time ago.  Alas, I've never painted resin before.  A quick google reveals I need to get the "right" sort of primer.  I presume once it's primed, the topcoats can be pretty much whatever brand/formulation I choose?

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I use Humbrol 33 matt black, 34 matt white or 27 grey enamels as a primers.

Sometimes all three on one subject, eg, grey on the tunic, white on the trousers and black on everything else

Colour coats are whatever colour is required, matt or gloss, enamel or acrylic, then acrylic matt varnish near the end of the build on parts that need to be matt

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/18/2021 at 8:06 PM, mhaselden said:

I presume once it's primed, the topcoats can be pretty much whatever brand/formulation I choose?

 

A bit of a late reply but yes, once the primer's on you are just painting the primer so it doesn't seem to matter what's underneath it.

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