Historical Record of the Thirty-ninth, or the Dorsetshire Regiment of Foot: containing an account of the formation of the regiment in 1702, and of its subsequent services to 1853.

by Richard Cannon

Memoir of the Services of Major-General Sir Charles Bruce, K.C.B., formerly Lieut.-Colonel of the Thirty-ninth regiment.

This officer was appointed Ensign in the Fifty-second regiment on the 4th of February 1793, was promoted to a lieutenancy in the Ninety-ninth regiment on the 6th of August following, and was advanced to the rank of Captain in the One hundred and fifth regiment on the 23rd of April 1794, which two latter corps have been since disbanded. Captain Bruce was removed to the Thirty-ninth regiment on the 1st of October 1795, and was present at the capture of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice in 1796. He served seven years with his regiment in the West Indies, and on the staff as Assistant Quartermaster-General and Barrack-Master at Surinam and Antigua. On the 25th of September 1803 he received the brevet rank of Major, and was promoted to that rank in the Thirty-ninth regiment on the 21st of March 1805. He next served in Spain and Portugal; and on the 25th of July 1810 was advanced to the brevet rank of Lieut.-Colonel. Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Bruce commanded the first battalion of the Thirty-ninth at the battle of Vittoria on the 21st of June 1813, in consequence of Colonel the Honorable Robert William O’Callaghan being in temporary command of a brigade, and also during the actions in the Pyrenees from the 25th to the 31st of July following. At the passage of the Nive in December of the same year Lieut.-Colonel Bruce commanded the light companies of the brigade, and distinguished himself at the affair of Garris on the 15th of February 1814, where he was severely wounded. He was also present at the battle of Orthes on the 27th of that month. For the battles of Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nive, and Orthes, he had the honor of wearing a cross, and on the 4th of June 1815 was nominated a Companion of the Order of the Bath. On the 29th of June 1815 he was appointed Lieut.-Colonel of the Thirty-ninth regiment, and was placed on the half-pay of that corps on the 25th of February 1816. Lieut.-Colonel Bruce was promoted to the brevet rank of Colonel on the 12th of August 1819, was appointed to the Sixty-ninth regiment on the 29th of March 1821, and was placed on the half-pay of that corps on the 25th of April 1826, from which he exchanged to the Sixth foot on the 10th of January 1828, and to the Sixty-fourth regiment on the 1st of May following. Colonel Bruce was advanced to the rank of Major-General on the 22nd of July 1830, and was nominated a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on the 13th of September 1831. His decease occurred in London on the 7th of August 1832.

Memoir of the Services of Major-General Sir Patrick Lindesay, K.C.B. and K.C.H., formerly Lieut.-Colonel of the Thirty-ninth regiment.

Major-General Sir Patrick Lindesay was the only son of Lieut.-Colonel John Lindesay of the Fifty-third regiment, and was born at Musselburgh, in the county of Edinburgh, on the 24th of February 1778. He received his education at the university of St. Andrew’s, and was appointed Ensign in the Thirty-second regiment on the 7th of November 1793, and was gazetted Lieutenant in the Seventy-eighth regiment on the day following. Lieutenant Lindesay was wounded while serving with his regiment in Holland in 1794, in the expedition under the command of His Royal Highness the Duke of York, and was promoted to the rank of Captain on the 1st of September 1795. Captain Lindesay was removed from the Seventy-eighth to the Thirty-ninth regiment on the 20th of October 1796, and served with the latter corps in the colonies of Demerara, Berbice, and Surinam, from 1797 until December 1802, when the regiment embarked for Barbadoes, proceeding thence to Antigua, and, in March 1803, returned to England, where it arrived in April following. After serving for a short period on the staff as Aide-de-camp to Brigadier-General Brent Spencer in the Sussex district, he accompanied the first battalion of the Thirty-ninth regiment to the Mediterranean in March 1805. On the 1st of October 1807 he was advanced to the rank of Major in the Thirty-ninth; and this promotion removed him to the second battalion of the regiment, which he subsequently joined at Guernsey, and proceeded with it in June 1809 to Portugal, the battalion having been selected to form part of the force employed in that country under the command of Lieut.-General the Honorable Sir Arthur Wellesley. Major Lindesay was present at the battle of Busaco on the 27th of September 1810, in command of the second battalion of the Thirty-ninth regiment, Lieut.-Colonel Wilson having been appointed to the charge of a brigade. At the battle of Albuhera on the 16th of May 1811, Major Lindesay also commanded the second battalion, and received a medal for that action, and on the 20th of June following was promoted to the brevet rank of Lieut.-Colonel. Shortly afterwards he again distinguished himself at Arroyo dos Molinos, on the 28th of October 1811, in an expedition, under the immediate orders of Lieut.-General Rowland Hill, against a division of the French army commanded by General Girard. On this occasion Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Lindesay was detached with the second battalion of the Thirty-ninth in pursuit of the discomfited enemy; and at considerable hazard, although without success, personally summoned the French commander to surrender. In 1812 Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Lindesay was employed in England recruiting the second battalion under his command, which had returned from the Peninsula for that purpose.

In October 1813 Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Lindesay joined the first battalion in the Peninsula, and was present at the conflicts with the enemy on the Nivelle, Nive, and at Bayonne, on the invasion of the French territory, as well as in all the subsequent engagements, until June 1814, when he embarked at Bourdeaux with the first battalion for North America, upon the termination of the campaign in the Peninsula, in consequence of Great Britain being engaged in hostilities with the United States. In May 1815 the battalion proceeded to embark at Quebec under the command of Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Lindesay, who was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on the 4th of June following. The services of the corps were necessary in Europe, in consequence of the return of Napoleon Bonaparte to France; but before in arrival at Ostend the victory of Waterloo had been gained by the allied troops under the Duke of Wellington. The battalion subsequently proceeded to Paris, and Lieut.-Colonel Lindesay continued in France until the breaking up of the Army of Occupation in 1818, when he returned to England with the Thirty-ninth regiment, which embarked at Calais on the 30th of October of that year, and shortly after its arrival at Dover proceeded to Ireland.

Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Lindesay was appointed Lieut.-Colonel of the Thirty-ninth on the 12th of August 1824; and having been employed with the regiment in Ireland until the following year, he proceeded to England in command of the corps preparatory to its embarking, by detachments, for New South Wales, for which colony Brevet-Colonel Lindesay, to which rank he had been promoted on the 27th of May 1825, embarked with the head-quarters of the regiment on the 26th of April 1827.

While commanding the Thirty-ninth in New South Wales, the government of the colony for a short time devolved upon Colonel Lindesay, namely, from the 22nd of October to the 2nd of December 1831. In July 1832 six companies of the regiment proceeded from Sydney to Madras, and were followed in December by the remaining four companies. Upon joining the Madras army he was appointed a Colonel on the staff, and Commandant of Bangalore on the 15th of February 1833. In April 1834 he commanded the expedition against the Rajah of Coorg, with the rank of Brigadier-General in India, which was conducted with a skill, ability, and success, that added greatly to his military reputation. Appointed on the 3rd of January 1835 to the southern division of the Madras army, with the temporary rank of Brigadier-General, he commanded the troops stationed at Trichinopoly, when he was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order. His health, for the first time during his long and active service, began to fail, and in the beginning of 1836 Colonel Lindesay returned to England; on the 10th of January 1837 he was advanced to the rank of Major-General, and on the 19th of July 1838 was nominated a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.

Major-General Sir Patrick Lindesay for a time appeared to derive benefit from his native air, and the society of friends and relatives, but the seeds of disease had taken too deep a hold of his constitution to enable it to rally. After a lingering illness, he died at Portobello, near Edinburgh, on the 14th of March 1839, in the sixty-second year of his age, having completed a course of more than forty-four years’ active service.