Fisher Family, Almondbury, Papers (WYK1263)
1719 - c1844
Tough parenting
Undated extract from a letter from Thomas Fisher
These absorbing letters from Thomas Fisher to his parents during the years 1805-1818 give a remarkable insight into family relationships and the ways “problem” sons were made to mend their ways. Thomas never stops complaining how much he hates being in the Army and begging his parents to arrange his discharge.
“but if you don't get my discharge I am ruined for ever for this state of life I had better be shot immediately that continue it for I am so much imbittered against it that I cannot think of doing my duty in it tho’ I have done so far...”
Unfortunately for Thomas they never do. By August 1810, Thomas was serving in the Peninsular War probably in the Corunna campaign, still asking for a discharge.
“ I have suffered one of the hardest campaigns that any British soldiers before experienced where I may safely say that I was one out of ten that escaped the Hand of Death ...”
His colonel in September 1810 had told him he would ignore any requests for his discharge, and the last letter remaining from him was written from his hospital bed in Plymouth on the 21st July 1818, where he was recovering from sickness, asking to come home.
“but if you don't get my discharge I am ruined for ever for this state of life I had better be shot immediately that continue it for I am so much imbittered against it that I cannot think of doing my duty in it tho’ I have done so far...”
Unfortunately for Thomas they never do. By August 1810, Thomas was serving in the Peninsular War probably in the Corunna campaign, still asking for a discharge.
“ I have suffered one of the hardest campaigns that any British soldiers before experienced where I may safely say that I was one out of ten that escaped the Hand of Death ...”
His colonel in September 1810 had told him he would ignore any requests for his discharge, and the last letter remaining from him was written from his hospital bed in Plymouth on the 21st July 1818, where he was recovering from sickness, asking to come home.
What William Saw...
Letter to Joseph Fisher Nov 1810 with some of the seal intact
William Fisher was also sent away, and in April 1810 he sailed for Jamaica from Liverpool. In Jamaica he worked as a planter’s clerk and wrote home graphically about the treatment of the enslaved workers on the plantation.
“I was sick when I first came here and saw the negroes flogged every day, they are divided into gangs & every gang has two drivers...who stand over them all day with a large whip in their hands, if they loose a moment or give the least offence the Driver calls four negroes & seizes the offender, lays her or he naked on the ground & flogs their backsides...”
The British Slave trade had been abolished in 1807, but enslaved workers were kept in British colonies like the West Indies until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. This would have been a topical issue for William and his family, his reaction to the treatment he witnessed is very raw and emphasises how this letter is a remarkable eye-witness account.
View the collection on our online catalogue.
“I was sick when I first came here and saw the negroes flogged every day, they are divided into gangs & every gang has two drivers...who stand over them all day with a large whip in their hands, if they loose a moment or give the least offence the Driver calls four negroes & seizes the offender, lays her or he naked on the ground & flogs their backsides...”
The British Slave trade had been abolished in 1807, but enslaved workers were kept in British colonies like the West Indies until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. This would have been a topical issue for William and his family, his reaction to the treatment he witnessed is very raw and emphasises how this letter is a remarkable eye-witness account.
View the collection on our online catalogue.
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