Page 103 - KRH Regimental Journal 2022

The Regimental Journal of The King’s Royal Hussars 101
TSM Thomas Summerell
to be buried with military honours’ (Staffordshire Advertiser, 28 December 1878).
Alongside her husband’s three campaign medals Rose Summerell kept a memento from her own service in the regimental school! This was a small medal which was ‘presented to Mrs Summerell when she was a little schoolgirl in India by one of whom she still speaks as “Colonel Havelock, the brother of the great hero, General Havelock”. The medal bears her name on the edge, and is inscribed “For Merit” hav- ing been given to little Rose Murray for good conduct at school.’
Unfortunately, none of these medals are held by the Museum, but a recently discovered photograph album from 1862, passed down through the Tilney family, has provided a previously unknown photograph of Thomas Summerell.
After her husband’s death Rose moved to London with her children. She often mentioned one of their Regimental friends, Stephen Sweeney, a formidable old soldier. Born in 1818, Sweeney enlisted into the 14th in 1837 and served in the Anglo-Sikh Wars, Persia, and the Indian Mutiny.
Sweeney is also an interesting character; in 1859 he transferred to the 2nd Bengal European Light Cavalry and was one of the volunteers who stayed on as the regiment became the 20th Light Dragoons, before being retitled as Hussars. He was therefore one of the first soldiers to serve in both the 14th and 20th Hussars!
Retiring after 25 years’ service, in 1864 he was appointed Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London. Several years later he was appointed a Yeoman Gaoler. Sweeney died in 1898, aged 80, but in the years before his death he had shared ‘many long yarns of his soldiering days’ with Colonel Henry Blackburne Hamilton who was compiling his Historical Record of the 14th Hussars, which was published in 1900.
Also at the Tower was another regimental veteran and Rose described how ‘we three used to meet once a year on the anniversary of the day on which our regiment left Canterbury, just to talk over old affairs and old friends. But they are both dead now, and I believe I am the only survivor of the ten or eleven hundred who went out in the Repulse in 1841.’
Rose Summerell
When Rose was interviewed by Lloyd’s she was still living in Brixton Hill, London, although sadly six of her seven children had died. As a result of the newspaper article, she received several letters from old friends, but the greatest pleasure was one from the 14th Hussars stationed in Bangalore.
Members of the Royal Army Temperance Association within the regiment agreed to gift Mrs Summerell a pension of £1 a month during her lifetime, dubbing her ‘the daughter of the regiment’. A Corporal Byrne forwarded a postal order for the first pound to Lloyd’s offices who visited her to deliver the news:
‘It was pathetic to see Mrs Summerell’s pleasure when the let- ter with this great news was handed to her. Her eyes filled with tears and she had some difficulty in expressing her feelings ’So very, very kind and thoughtful of them... it will make a lot of difference. A pound a month will mean so many little comforts.’
‘Bangalore, that is where I was born you know. Corporal Byrne, I don’t know the name at all; but then how would I? It is so many years since I left India.’
As a result of this connection, she was invited to several Ramnuggur Balls and other regimental dinners. In 1924 she attended the Ramnuggur Ball alongside Troop Sergeant Major John Stratford, the last survivor of the battle.
After a very eventful life Rose Summerell died on 31 January 1928 and is buried at West Norwood Cemetery, one of London’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ Cemeteries.