Robert Philip Armstrong (1825-1863)

We now come to Richard Ramsay Armstrong's service in the Crimea. RRA had two brothers in the Army who served alongside him at the siege of Sevastopol, and it is the elder of the two who is covered first.

Robert Philip Armstrong was the eldest surviving boy in the Armstrong family. He was born in Jersey on 10 February and baptized on 13 March, 1825. He was presented by Philippe de Quetteville Esq. and Dlle. Esther Nicolle.

He joined the Army on 25 February, 1848, by purchase as an Ensign in the 67th Foot - the South Hampshire Regiment. By the time of the invasion of the Crimean he was a Lieutenant (seniority 06.06.1854). Below is a scan of the December 1854 Hart's Army List for 67th showing RPA located at the regimental depot. At some point in early 1855 he transferred to the 77th Foot - the East Middlesex Regiment - and went to the Crimea.


He served throughout the campaign with the 77th, being 'wounded, slightly' on 17 August, 1855. [Frank & Andrea Cook, Casualty Roll for the Crimea, Hayward & Son, London, 1976.] He received the Crimea Medal with 'Sebastopol' Clasp and the Turkish Medal.

After the war RPA returned to Jersey. However, the rest of his life is poorly recorded. At some point, not at this moment clear, he transferred to the 23rd Regiment - The Royal Welsh Fusiliers. He was promoted Captain on 26 March, 1858. From the pages of The Times it appears he either did, or was about to go to India with his regiment, and may have got as far as Malta, where the 23rd were part of the garrison in March 1859. He was still there in July 1860.

However, at some point in 1861 he got married to Clara Ann Malet, a younger sister of Eliza Susanna Malet, RRA’s wife.

Robert Philip Armstrong died in 1863, in the first year of their marriage.

New information about 'Pike' 29 Mar 09

New information has come to light about Bayley Pike and John Brewer Pike. Those who have read RRA will remember that he told the story of a young man called Pike, with whom he had been at school in Jersey, who was 'dismissed the Service' in Sierra Leone and put ashore from the notorious HMS Hound.

RRA remembered that Pike instantly got the job of Mate on an 'Indiaman' which was at Sierra Leone on her way home. Her captain had died, and Pike took her home in something like record time to be thoroughly congratulated and awarded plate by the owners. RRA then says that Pike continued with a very successful career in the Merchant Service.

In the 1841 census for Jersey there is indeed a Pike, born in 1833, the same year as RRA. So far so good. His name was Bayley Pike. And a Bayley Pike turns up in the service records of naval officers in the National Archives - and yes he was dismissed the Service at Sierra Leone in early 1851 from being Master's Assistant in HMS Hound. So clearly, that much of the story is true.

Next I looked for Pikes in the 1851 census, conveniently taken sometime after Pike would have got home in the 'Indiaman'. Lo and behold, there is a Pike, the right age, in Plymouth, at his father's house (a storekeeper at the Devonport dockyard), and describing himself as "Mate of the Talavera".

(All this is covered in much greater detail in the Appendix of RRA)

But (Oh dear) This Pike is called John Brewer Pike, and is recorded as being born in Plymouth, not Jersey like Bayley Pike in the census ten years before.

And the Talavera? Well, coincidence upon coincidence, she was an 'Indiaman', owned by Duncan Dunbar of Blackwall, and yes, she was on her way home from India at exactly the right time in early 1851!

There is no more trace of 'our' Bayley Pike in the England & Wales or Channel Islands censuses after that solitary appearance in 1841. John Brewer Pike, however, went on to have a successful career in the Merchant Marine as a Master Mariner, and appears in several more E&W censuses.

That's the story in a nutshell. When I wrote the appendix to RRA I became convinced, though there was no positive proof, that Bayley Pike had skippered the Talavera home, and for whatever reason, had 'become' John Brewer Pike, son of Anthony Pike of Plymouth. I had not been able to find the Plymouth Pikes in the 1841 census - but now I have.

There is, of course, the same Anthony Pike, naval storekeeper, and among his children is a boy, the right age, simply registered as 'John Pike'. So surely this must be the John Brewer Pike of ten years later? Mustn't it...? That effectively kicks my theory into touch.

And further mystery is provided by the discovery of a perfectly plausible Bayley Pike as a sheep station manager in the South Island of New Zealand in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and then as a 'sheep inspector' in Queensland in the late 1860s.

But wait a minute - the late 1850s and early 60s was exactly when RRA was first in the South Island of New Zealand! Did he bump into his old school friend from Jersey, the friend he hadn't seen for nearly ten years? Did he and the friend yarn about old times on the Slave Coast? Did Bayley Pike tell him about being dismissed the Service? And the other young officer dismissed from HMS Hound at exactly the same time? (There was one according to RRA's story - but so far untraced and unnamed.) Did RRA do his usual trick of muddling stories? Was the other young man John Brewer Pike? A cousin perhaps of Bayley Pike? Sounds fantastic, but fits the facts better than the suggestion that Bayley Pike changed his name to John Brewer... now that we know that the Bayley Pike from Jersey is almost certainly the very same as the sheep run manager in Canterbury.

One problem: there is no John Brewer Pike in RN Service Records. The quest goes on!