A recent documentary discovery shows British military commitment to Portugal predates 1808 A recent crowd-funded purchase of an Order Book dated Lisbon 1798-1802, caused the discovery of a little-known British deployment of significant numbers of troops to Portugal from 1796-1802. Why were these troops there? Which troops were there? Who led them? What did they […]

The little known battle which would secure the Cape for Britain for 120 years Cape Town became involved in the Napoleonic Wars in 1806 when Britain invaded the country for the second time. Britain had previously held the Cape from 1795, but the treaty of Amiens forced them to return it to the Batavian Republic […]

This talk will explore and challenge the conventional thinking of how the 1815 infantry were uniformed during the 100 Days Campaign. Were they issued with new Bardin regulation uniforms or retained their old uniforms from the previous campaigns? Peter Cross will explain the background story that had a significant impact on the regimental commanders preparing […]

The little known use of Boy soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars In the 1790s the British Army faced a recruitment crisis as depleted regiments returned from the Caribbean. One of the novel approaches adopted by the War Office to fill its exhausted ranks was to recruit boy soldiers into depleted regiments such as the 22nd […]

19.30-21.00 This talk details the invasion of Ceylon in 1795, by forces of the East India Company and the Crown, to wrest control of the island from the Dutch, who had ‘imbibed the principles of revolutionary France.’ The invasion was successful and relatively bloodless due to the extraordinary change of allegiance by the Swiss mercenary […]