British Army: Soldiers' Pensions, 1702-1913: Belper Residents

Discharge papers of some Belper men who served in various regiments and received a war pension.

Introduction

Charles II set up the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, in 1679, and the Royal Hospital, Chelsea in 1681. The two hospitals, in Ireland and England respectively, reflected the separate army establishments for the two countries, which did not become joined until the Act of Union in 1800. Even then, it was not until December 1822 that the payment of Kilmainham out-pensions was taken over by Chelsea Hospital, and in-pensioners remained in Kilmainham until 1929, when the last transferred to Chelsea.

Entitlements to pension

Soldiers who left the Army with a disabling injury, or as invalids or (for relatively few soldiers before the later 19th century) after completing an agreed term of service, were entitled to a pension from, or institutional care at, Chelsea or Kilmainham. A description of an ex-soldier as a 'pensioner' usually means he was in receipt of an out-pension from one of the military hospitals, not that he was an in-pensioner, actually resident in the hospital.

The major series of records (and the first place to look for any soldier) resulting from the grant of a pension are the attestation and other discharge documents in WO97, covering 1756-1913: see British Army Soldiers' Discharge Papers (1760-1913), for more details.

For men awarded out-pensions by the Board of Kilmainham Hospital, there are certificates of service, 1783-1822. They are arranged by discharge number, found in admission books WO119