1823
1824
The regiment, in October 1823, marched from Armagh to Naas, and in January, 1824, proceeded to Dublin, where it occupied Richmond barracks.
In the year 1824 the regiment received orders to prepare for foreign service:—the island of Ceylon was, in the first instance, selected as its destination, but it was eventually changed to Bengal. On the 20th of July the left wing of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment marched to Kingstown, and embarked on board of transports for Portsmouth, where it arrived on the 26th of July; the right wing, following soon afterwards, joined on the 2nd of August, and the regiment went into barracks at Gosport.
1825
On the 12th of January, 1825, the regiment marched from Gosport for Chatham, where it arrived on the 20th of that month. On the 7th of February the regiment marched to Gravesend to embark for Calcutta: the right wing on board the Honorable East India Company’s ship “Kent,” under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Fearon; the left wing on board the “Scaleby Castle,” under Major Tovey. The two ships parted company off Portsmouth at the end of February, and the “Scaleby Castle,” after making a favourable voyage, arrived at Sangor, in the mouth of the Hoogley, on the 7th of June.
The men had been remarkably healthy during the long confinement on board ship; two only had died during the passage, and only eight were on the sick list when the vessel came to anchor. The men were transferred, after a few days’ delay at Sangor Point, to sloops, a particularly uncomfortable and clumsy description of vessel, then used to transport troops up the River Hoogley from the sand-heads, and on the 21st of June they arrived opposite Fort William, where boats had been prepared to receive them, for they were not yet destined to land. It was the 26th, however, before the left wing was able to sail again; it was therefore five days, during the most trying season of the year, confined in small thatched boats, which were moored to the river’s bank: it nevertheless reached Berhampore on the 2nd of July, with the loss of only one man.
Berhampore, on the Bhagaritty river, is the cantonment of the city of Moorshedabad, and in 1825 was the depôt of the regiments on the Bengal establishment, then on service in Burmah. The companies of the left wing of the corps took possession of the barracks, and remained in them till the 22nd of September.
Madeley lith. 3 Wellington St Strand.
The voyage of the right wing of the regiment from England was interrupted very early in its progress by one of the most unhappy events that could befall a ship at sea. The Kent took fire on the 1st of March, in the Bay of Biscay, and was totally destroyed: the accident was first perceived about ten o’clock A.M., towards the end of a violent gale of wind, when the sea was disturbed, and the ship rolling heavily.