Draft:Thomas Barlow (Captain)

Thomas Barlow, soldier, preacher, teacher and pioneering settler in Melbourne Australia was one of the acclaimed heroes of the Battle of Waterloo. At that battle he was Regimental Sergeant Major of the 1st or King’s Dragoon Guards (KDG), and was reputed to have defeated one of the most accomplished mounted swordsmen in the French army that day. The French cavalry officer was in one of the two elite cuirassier regiments that the KDG faced during its charge as part of the Household Brigade at around 2.30pm on Sunday 18th June 1815. The KDG was decimated during the battle, and according to Barlow, of the 540 men that had charged only 13-15 men were left standing in the regiment at the end of the day. He was one of them and is believed to have invited the few remaining officers to share a rudimentary dinner, and the first proper meal any of them had had in days. It must have been a rather sombre affair, meat and fat (probably from one of the many dead horses) cooked on a Frenchman’s cuirass on a fire made from broken weapons and wheel spokes, surrounded by dead and dying men and horses. Officers and men sharing a meal together in this way was unusual given the social divide of Georgian times; but it became a tradition that on a date around the 18th of June the Regimental officers are invited to eat in the Sergeants’ mess of the KDG. This custom still takes place in its descendant regiment, 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards.

After the Battle of Waterloo, Barlow served for a further 15 years in the British Army before retiring to become a Methodist minister in 1833. In 1849 he emigrated with his second wife Sarah to Melbourne, Australia where he lived as a school teacher in the Collingwood District until his death in 1858. Barlow was a community leader in the early days of Melbourne. A pillar of the non-conformist church, he was also instrumental in the improvement to the infrastructure for the then municipality of Collingwood as he successfully pushed for the construction of a bridge on Johnston Street in 1858.

Military Service

Little is known of Barlow’s childhood and adolescence. He was born in Yorkshire, England in 1786 and enlisted in the KDG aged 15 on 18 April 1801. For the first seven years of his army service he was stationed around England. In 1808 the KDG were posted to Scotland, where they remained until 1810 when they left for Ireland. Between December 1814 and January 1815, the KDG moved back to England. As a result of the British Army’s response to the threat to European peace with the escape of Napoleon from exile on Elba, the KDG were sent to the European mainland. Barlow departed with his regiment for Ostend on 12 April 1815 and this was to be his, and most members of the Regiment, first experience of proper campaigning.

In his letters home to his first wife Betsy, Barlow describes aspects of the eight weeks march the KDG made from Ostend down to the days before they reached their final bivouac at Waterloo on 17 June. A cultured and thoughtful man, Barlow described the Low Countries through which he passed as the country that ‘is one of the most beautiful I ever saw, and the inhabitants are very good to us.’ He went on to tell his wife that he was endeavouring to learn French to the extent that he could request food from the locals.

On the 17 June – the night before the battle - the KDG participated in a screen of cavalry to engage the French around the village of Genappe. In this action Barlow rescued the situation for one of the KDG troops as he describes in a letter to his wife:

'The Blues lost a few men during the retreat, Captain Sweny was ordered out with a division to skirmish with the enemy but owing to the misconception of his orders took his division into a place where they were likely to be taken prisoner. I was despatched to fetch them away and although much exposed to the enemy’s balls brought every man away safe, we then retired to a strong position near Waterloo and Bivouacked for the night.'

During the Battle of Waterloo Barlow probably rode with the KDG’s commanding officer Colonel William Fuller who was later killed in the battle. The KDG’s 540 sabres were in the centre of Lord Edward Somerset’s Household Brigade. This was situated to the north of La Haye Sainte farmhouse to the west of the Union Brigade; these two brigades together made up the heavy components of the British cavalry at Waterloo under the Earl of Uxbridge. At around 2.25pm Uxbridge ordered the signal to be given for both British heavy cavalry brigades to charge south to smash General d’Erlon’s I Corps that was about to threaten the Allied defensive line on the plateau of Mont St Jean. Opposing the KDG were the 1st and 4th Cuirassiers, who were in the ground below the British to the west of La Haye Sainte farm. At the outset of this first charge Barlow performed his feat of arms in defeating a cuirassier officer in single combat near the outbuildings of La Haye Sainte. This feat was even more remarkable given the blade of the Frenchman’s XI or XIII-pattern sword was 3.5 inches longer than Barlow’s 1796-pattern heavy cavalry sword. Barlow gave this description of the first charge in a letter home:

'The charge was made in most gallant style, the Enemy Cavalry ran away, we pursued them for about ½ a mile thinking the day was our own; but alas, dreadful fate was in reserve for many of our brave Comrades; a body of the French Cavalry and Lancers surrounded us [we] took a flank movement to the left and cut our way through to them but with immense loss…after the confused manner in which the Regiment retreated it could not reform.'

During this first charge, that lasted around an hour, most of the KDG became casualties. According to Barlow only around 30 officers and men out of 540 who started the charge were fit to fight with their mounts.

After the battle Barlow moved south to Paris with his regiment where it arrived on 8th July moving into quarters in the northwestern suburbs of the French capital. Soon afterwards, on 10th August, Barlow was commissioned as a cornet in the KDG exchanging his role as regimental sergeant major for that of the adjutant. Barlow and the KDG remained in Paris for another nine months until they departed Calais for England on 3rd May; they reached Dover some four days later.

The KDG then moved into Hounslow cavalry barracks before being posted to Lancashire and Yorkshire in 1817. In 1818 the KDG moved to Scotland. On 16 April of that year Barlow, by then a captain, was placed on half pay and transferred to the 23rd Light Dragoons. The following year he was appointed to be the adjutant of the Prince Regent’s 2nd Regiment of Cheshire Yeomanry with which he remained until he retired from the British Army in 1833 after 32 years of distinguished service.

Civilian Career

Around 1833 Barlow became a Methodist preacher and lived for several years at Pickmere, Cheshire in the north of England. However, Barlow wanted another challenge and decided to emigrate to Australia, leaving his family behind in Bradford in the care of their grandparents.

In 1849 Barlow and his second wife Sarah took passage from Liverpool to Australia on the ‘Courier’ to Port Phillip. His duties were to provide instruction to the children on board and his wife’s to look after the single immigrant women. Barlow is said to have upset the ship’s Master and fellow passengers on the passage with his preaching and loud hymn singing.

Arriving in Port Phillip on 11th September, the Barlows can be considered as pioneers to Melbourne as that city had only been founded in 1835 just fourteen years before the Barlow’s appointments; and it was then the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Barlow appears to have been an enthusiastic citizen of the new colony, involving himself in the community. In an early book about the Port Phillip District, he is described as a Congregational Minister and as running a Wesleyan Association school at Nicholson Street in Collingwood, Melbourne. As a school master, his employer was the British Commissioner for Emigration; and Sarah his wife was employed as a matron. It appears he remained a teacher in Collingwood until his death aged 73 in 1858.

Barlow was also an active member of the Collingwood community and, as well as being a pillar of the non-conformist churches, he improved infrastructure links to that suburb. In 1855 he is recorded as having addressed a meeting of interested parties proposing the erection of a bridge across the Yarra at Johnstone Street. The bridge would connect Collingwood with Kew. His initiative ensured that this bridge was built. The original structure was a wooden one completed in 1858 and was replaced by an iron bridge in 1879. The Johnston Street Bridge is still there but is a concrete one built in 1954-6.

Personal Life

On 17 February 1814 Thomas Barlow aged 28 married Elizabeth (Betsy) Wagstaff, the daughter of William Wagstaff, Quartermaster of the KDG and his wife Ann Reid of Bradford. They had six children, of whom one died in infancy. Elizabeth died in 1830 leaving Barlow a widower with young children. On 12th August 1833 Barlow married Sarah Dorrington at Saint John's Church, Manchester, Lancashire. They had no issue.

Barlow died on 10th May 1858 at his home in Collingwood, Victoria and was buried on the 13th May in the Melbourne General Cemetery. Sarah died ten years later and was buried alongside Barlow. Their grave is currently unmarked, and the Heritage Trust of 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards is leading on a campaign to ensure that this outstanding soldier and early Melbourne pioneer is given a fitting memorial in 2025, the 210th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.

Books

Goldsbrough, Richard (2019). The Cavalry That Broke Napoleon. Cheltenham: The History Press. ISBN 978 07509 92107