On the 6th September 1805 John joined the 2nd battalion of the 62nd Regiment of Foot (later the Wiltshire Regiment) in the recruiting town of Hungerford. He was posted to Captain Thomas Hutchings’ Company and paid 12 shillings and 8 pence to the end of the quarter. He was just 15 years of age.

He was based in Hungerford (presumably getting training) for almost 2 years - from September 1805 until about August 1807. He was getting 10d a day as a "Boy". On 25th June 1807 he is shown as being placed in Soldiers pay (Man Service) as he had reached the age of 18 on this date.

He then moved on to Winchester where he spent some time in hospital during September 1807 - I have no details of why this may be. He may have been wounded in training or caught a disease going round the camp. 

By March 1808 he was stationed at Berry Head. The system of company numbering began at this time and he was assigned to No.2 company. He stayed here for about 8 months and then was transferred to No.1 Company at Kingsbridge.

In the new year of 1809 he was transferred to No.10 Company. He was based in and around the Grouville Barracks, Jersey right up until June 1810. So it would appear that during the first five years of his army days he did not see any action to write home about (one lucky soldier given the activity on the continent - in the Peninsular Wars against Napoleon's forces and allies - and in Ireland around this time).

This inactivity appears to have gotten to him. On 2nd June 1810 he joined the 1st Battalion of the 62nd - "a volunteer from the 2/62nd foot". He was posted to No.4 Company and shipped straight out to Melazzo (near Messina) in Sicily and right into the middle of the Napoleonic Wars! .

The whole of Stuart’s army was embarked to Sicily. Napoleon had made peace with the Austrians - this meant that more French troops were on the march into Italy. "After a French invasion fiasco south of Messina in September 1810, which was soundly defeated the 1/62nd spent the remaining months of 1810 and all of 1811 on coastal defence between Messina and Faro but this defensive existence was enlivened by occasional participation in amphibious raids."

John was based at Palermo and Faro between September 1811 and December 1813. Although much of the time the 62nd were undoubtedly defending the coastline they were possibly also involved with short actions on the mainland. Napolean was now in exile and so the need for the British troops on the continent was no longer necessary.

In December 1813 John was at Livarno (sometimes called Leghorn) near Pisa on mainland Italy. From here, in early 1814, they departed on a long voyage to North America where trouble was brewing. They landed in the middle of 1814 and settled camp in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

"In May, the 1/62nd sailed from Genoa for Nova Scotia, where it came under the command again of its old general of Egypt and Sicily, Sir John Sherbrooke, the Governor."

"In late August [1814], Sherbrooke sailed from Halifax to invade Maine with ten transports loaded with, among others, the 1/62nd, reaching the mouth of the Penobscot River on August 31 where his naval escort was joined by the seventy-four-gun Bulwark and four other warships. Next day, as the 62nd and the other regiments prepared to assault, the commander of the American fort at Castine blew up his post and withdrew the garrison upriver."

"At Castine, Sherbrooke learned that the American corvette, Adams, was lying up the Penobscot and sent off to locate and destroy her a task force of 600 troops, including men of the 62nd embarked in small vessels and barges. Upriver at Hampden, the British force was confronted by 600 Maine militiamen, about 200 seamen from the Adams manning a battery f ship’s guns mounted by their captain on a high bank of the Soadanscook Creek which commanded the river approaches, and forty soldiers from the Castine fort. Next morning, the British regulars attacked and before the steady advance of the veterans, the enemy force disintegrated, the militia fleeing with hardly a shot fired. The British took eightyprisoners and twenty-five guns and pressed on to Bangor, where they received the surrender of an American general and 190 men; the Adams and two ships had been burned."

"On September 9, another column which included the other companies of the 62nd, disembarked at Buck’s Harbour from warships to capture Machias. After a difficult night march, they came up in the rear of Fort O’Brien at daybreak but, again, the garrison fled without a fight. That day, Machias and its Point battery were occupied and the whole of eastern Maine from the Penobscot to the New Brunswick border came under British rule."

"However, apart from he battle of New Orleans, the war was almost over and in the peace terms, Maine was handed back to te Americans. The 1st Battalion left the soil of the United States and went into a garrison life in Nova Scotia."

John was stationed here at the British base at Halifax, Nova Scoti from March 1815 until August 1819. He spent some of his time in Bermuda, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton during this period.

On 24th August 1819 John was "invalided and sent home as supernumerary for discharge". Captain Gray thought that it was "probable that John Swain was posted from Halifax to the army Depot at Albany barracks, Isle of Wight and thence to the Discharge Depot at Fort Pitt, Chatham [Kent] - although this is not stated."

On 30th of December 1819 he signed off from the 62nd Foot having served for 14 years and 149 days. He joined number 9 company of the 5th Royal Veterans Battalion at a rate of 1s 1d. He was stationed in Plymouth from this date until the middle of 1821. He was granted furlough between 26th December 1820 and 23rd January 1821. It is possible that this was when he married his first wife Ann. I have been unable to find Ann's surname or any evidence of their marriage from the army lists of marriages. Unfortunately she did not survive until the 1851 Census to tell me where exactly she was born either.

John was eventually discharged from the army in Plymouth on the 1st June 1821 due to "Epilepsy" - he was almost 32 years old and had been in the army for almost 16 years. The battalion was disbanded in Shrewsbury just three weeks later on 24th June 1821.

During the whole of this period he got paid an average of £2 6 shillings per three months. He was described on his discharge papers as being 5ft 8.5 inches with brown hair, a dark complexion and grey eyes.

He appears to have spent most of the rest of his life in peaceful agricultural labourer and Chelsea pensioner.

His first child, Ann, was born in about 1820 in foreign parts, so says the 1841 Census. I have yet to find her on the 1851 Census (she was probably married by then) and so do not know her exact place of birth. John and Ann had a further six children together in Aldermaston - first Thomas (1822), then Joseph (1823), John (1825), Jane (1828), James (1830) and Charlotte (1833). Unfortunately, Ann died aged 42 years old (I don’t know of what) and was buried in Aldermaston on 27 Sep 1833.

John married again, to Floranna Webb (a Scots Lass) on 24th October 1835 (he was fifteen years her senior) in Aldermaston. They had a further seven children - George (1836), Jacob (1838), William (1838), Mary (1841), Ellen (1843), Eliza (1844) and Emely (1847).

John (62) and Floranna (47), with their youngest children Elizabeth (7) and Emely (4), were living at Aldermaston `Soak' in 1851. John is shown as an `Ag Lab Chelsea Pensioner'. These few snippets of information are the only things I know of John’s civilian life - two census entries and the baptisms of his children. He appears at some time to have received his pension at an address in South London - whether he was staying with one of his children seems more likely than him actually living there.

John finally died at the ripe old age of 83 on 9th April 1873 in Aldermaston. His death certificate merely states that he died of old age. His occupation was shown as Agricultural Labourer.