Dr. Eamonn O'Keeffe found what he believes to be the only surviving copy of Shadrach Byfield's "History and Conversion of a British Soldier." The autobiography was published in London, England, in 1851, but the only copy known to survive turned up 3,700 miles away in the Western Reserve Historical Society's library in Cleveland, Ohio.
I get they are fictional, but what strikes me from typical Victorian England proletariat dramas... Is that the British empire at the time had the largest empire in the history of the world. And their people lived in squalor in London.
You’ve identified a crucial paradox: Britain controlled the largest empire in history, yet most of its own population lived in dire poverty. This wasn’t accidental.
Imperial profits flowed almost entirely to a small propertied class. The working classes.. who provided the soldiers, sailors, and labour.. saw virtually none of it whilst living in squalor. Before 1918, most British men couldn’t vote at all; franchise was tied to property ownership.
When we discuss ‘the British Empire,’ we’re largely describing the actions and enrichment of perhaps 5-10% of the British population. Most Britons today can trace their ancestry back through generations of poverty and disenfranchisement, not imperial beneficiaries. It’s an important distinction that’s often lost in broader discussions of imperial responsibility.
I've never heard anyone suggest that Britain should have focused on improving conditions at home before engaging in empire building. I always assumed the two were not mutually dependent. The expenses in running an empire probably paid for itself and no doubt returned a lot on the initial investment (after all the whole point of having an empire is to secure better trading). Meanwhile the conditions in the cities were a separate problem, and one which was hard to fix quickly given the population explosion and the Industrial Revolution.
All of which to say, is while you raise an excellent point all the evidence i've seen suggests the two are entirely unrelated projects. If anything increasing globalisation in the long term increased prosperity for everyone involved (just not necessarily by equal amounts) and vastly improved conditions.
If anyone has a counterpoint, by which i mean historical complaints or serious academic analysis, i'm happy to hear. None of this is a moral judgement on the relative evils and merits of empires and Victorian England, which is not the topic, just my opinion of why from a practical standpoint one has very little to do with the other.
I mean you can only judge squalor if you also talk about how other people in capitals that were not London lived. Relative squalor might have been nice comparatively, or not, I have no idea.
Plenty of poor people in the US yet people still go there.
And the conditions for their vaunted military (both army and navy) was as bad or worse. A trip to the Fusilier Museum in the Tower of London really drove that home. Being a soldier absolutely sucked until pretty much the 20th century.
The thing about history is that it is remote until it is personal.
My dad was a soldier (so was mum but she left to marry dad, because that was an "option" in the '60s). We lived in West Germany quite a lot and the LSLs (Landing Ship Logistic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Sir_Galahad_(1966) were an option for travel to and fro' the UK. Me and my brother were teenagers at the time. The cooks on the LSLs were Chinese (Honkers - Hong Kong) and inveterate gamblers. I don't recall all the crew being Chinese as the wiki article says.
After dinner, "pud" (sweet/pudding) was often apple fritters with syrup. Me and my brother had quite an appetite and my mum told me later that the cooks would bet on how many bowls of apple fritters we would demolish.
Another thing I remember from the LSLs is that the tables had a ring around the edge about 1" high and very sticky table mats. They were flat bottomed, being designed to run up a beach, which had no chance because they were pretty old by the '80s. In any sort of a sea they pitched and yawed and made you wish you were a better person!
Despite all that, one made it to the Falklands and died horribly along with a fair few soldiers. Galahad was actually one of the later ones. Lancelot was an old one and would never have managed the journey.
I'd give the dramas a miss mate and stick to boring old history or efforts to try and describe what happened in the past, with evidence. This article is in the second camp.
The article is describing an "early" veteran's struggle to deal with being disabled in a war and how society treats them. London isn't mentioned at all.
Sadly, i dare say in the US, except for advancements in Medical, disabled vets have a somewhat rough time these days :(
Probably not as bad as Byfield, but compared to the standard of living now to back then, probably not that different when matched against the general population.
100% disabled vets in America get a tax free allowance of $4,000 a month, plus free medical care, plus a great deal of support including full free college to pursue the possibility of employment, which won’t reduce the disability pay at all.
I’d say America is taking care of them pretty well compared to Dickensian conditions.
Disability can be easy or hard to get, depending on which generation you got injured in and whether or not they think you're playing it up. I've heard both people saying that they were pushed to claim disability when they didn't actually need it, as well as men who definitely needed it getting turned down.
Actual health care at the VA can be really uneven too. A friend of mine got a knee injury and was basically given a three month supply of an addictive painkiller and told to go sit at home and take however much he wanted.
What do you think happens to a young man in his prime who is stuck glued to a couch other than sit around playing video games drunk all day addicted to painkillers?
Well, in his case at least, he managed to get off of them and turn himself around before it became too destructive, but the lack of care he was shown by the doctors put him at significant risk for permanent harm.
I've heard other horror stories, and stories of nothing but praise as well. YMMV.
I know a guy who retired from the Air Force and got 100% disability that included tinnitus, ptsd, and something about his joints. This person was an aircraft maintainer and never saw combat, although he was deployed a few times. The lady evaluating his case really hooked him up, he brags bout it all the time. He gets retirement and disability.
There are reddits, discords, and even companies that assist vets in working the system. many of whom never got close to deployment and were never combat arms. If you're persistent you'll get paid. As a combat vet it makes me sick.
i watch Caleb Hammers financial audit show on youtube and while I'm sure it's not all accurate, every single veteran they have on that show (keep in mind these are people with money iasues) who without exception get a package that would qualify as a part time salary, many get more than a full salary and often work other jobs. The system is healthy
> It had been assumed that Byfield died around 1850, but O'Keeffe's discovery of the veteran's 1851 memoir, along with additional evidence from newspapers and archives, adds new chapters to his astonishing life story.
I hate to be obnoxious, but what O'Keeffe did was happen upon a rare book in a small library the he recognized had been written by a semi-famous author. Instead of scanning it (or having it scanned) and putting it on archive.org, then writing his article, he's actively concealing these "new chapters" from the world. My assumption is that he's planning to put it into print in order to make a few bucks.
According to the Google Books entry (which I don't quite trust, because why would there be a Google Books entry?), it's 80 pages, so he'll either have to write a hefty introduction of what seems to be a story about a disabled vet talking about Jesus, or he'll combine the war narrative and the post-war narrative (both obviously long out of copyright) into a single volume and hawk that, and the article he's written will be the introduction.
I guess I advise him to self-publish and to make sure to also target Christian bookstores rather than just academic libraries? Survey a brick and mortar Christian bookstore of possible and get an idea about what covers sell?
Dr. Eamonn O'Keeffe found what he believes to be the only surviving copy of Shadrach Byfield's "History and Conversion of a British Soldier." The autobiography was published in London, England, in 1851, but the only copy known to survive turned up 3,700 miles away in the Western Reserve Historical Society's library in Cleveland, Ohio.
I get they are fictional, but what strikes me from typical Victorian England proletariat dramas... Is that the British empire at the time had the largest empire in the history of the world. And their people lived in squalor in London.
Yep.
You’ve identified a crucial paradox: Britain controlled the largest empire in history, yet most of its own population lived in dire poverty. This wasn’t accidental.
Imperial profits flowed almost entirely to a small propertied class. The working classes.. who provided the soldiers, sailors, and labour.. saw virtually none of it whilst living in squalor. Before 1918, most British men couldn’t vote at all; franchise was tied to property ownership.
When we discuss ‘the British Empire,’ we’re largely describing the actions and enrichment of perhaps 5-10% of the British population. Most Britons today can trace their ancestry back through generations of poverty and disenfranchisement, not imperial beneficiaries. It’s an important distinction that’s often lost in broader discussions of imperial responsibility.
Sounds pretty much like today
I've never heard anyone suggest that Britain should have focused on improving conditions at home before engaging in empire building. I always assumed the two were not mutually dependent. The expenses in running an empire probably paid for itself and no doubt returned a lot on the initial investment (after all the whole point of having an empire is to secure better trading). Meanwhile the conditions in the cities were a separate problem, and one which was hard to fix quickly given the population explosion and the Industrial Revolution.
All of which to say, is while you raise an excellent point all the evidence i've seen suggests the two are entirely unrelated projects. If anything increasing globalisation in the long term increased prosperity for everyone involved (just not necessarily by equal amounts) and vastly improved conditions.
If anyone has a counterpoint, by which i mean historical complaints or serious academic analysis, i'm happy to hear. None of this is a moral judgement on the relative evils and merits of empires and Victorian England, which is not the topic, just my opinion of why from a practical standpoint one has very little to do with the other.
I mean you can only judge squalor if you also talk about how other people in capitals that were not London lived. Relative squalor might have been nice comparatively, or not, I have no idea.
Plenty of poor people in the US yet people still go there.
That's because any "Empire" is the extension of the ruler's ego.
They weren't being imperial for their people.
It was so they could brag to other royals and rulers that their kingdom was bigger.
The people were resources and toys for the rulers' entertainment.
And the conditions for their vaunted military (both army and navy) was as bad or worse. A trip to the Fusilier Museum in the Tower of London really drove that home. Being a soldier absolutely sucked until pretty much the 20th century.
You might like to note that Florence Nightingale largely invented the concept of effective treatment of broken soldiers and she was from these parts.
You might like to ask this chap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Weston about being burned on a ship as a soldier many 1000 miles away from home.
The thing about history is that it is remote until it is personal.
My dad was a soldier (so was mum but she left to marry dad, because that was an "option" in the '60s). We lived in West Germany quite a lot and the LSLs (Landing Ship Logistic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Sir_Galahad_(1966) were an option for travel to and fro' the UK. Me and my brother were teenagers at the time. The cooks on the LSLs were Chinese (Honkers - Hong Kong) and inveterate gamblers. I don't recall all the crew being Chinese as the wiki article says.
After dinner, "pud" (sweet/pudding) was often apple fritters with syrup. Me and my brother had quite an appetite and my mum told me later that the cooks would bet on how many bowls of apple fritters we would demolish.
Another thing I remember from the LSLs is that the tables had a ring around the edge about 1" high and very sticky table mats. They were flat bottomed, being designed to run up a beach, which had no chance because they were pretty old by the '80s. In any sort of a sea they pitched and yawed and made you wish you were a better person!
Despite all that, one made it to the Falklands and died horribly along with a fair few soldiers. Galahad was actually one of the later ones. Lancelot was an old one and would never have managed the journey.
I'd give the dramas a miss mate and stick to boring old history or efforts to try and describe what happened in the past, with evidence. This article is in the second camp.
The article is describing an "early" veteran's struggle to deal with being disabled in a war and how society treats them. London isn't mentioned at all.
Sadly, i dare say in the US, except for advancements in Medical, disabled vets have a somewhat rough time these days :(
Probably not as bad as Byfield, but compared to the standard of living now to back then, probably not that different when matched against the general population.
100% disabled vets in America get a tax free allowance of $4,000 a month, plus free medical care, plus a great deal of support including full free college to pursue the possibility of employment, which won’t reduce the disability pay at all.
I’d say America is taking care of them pretty well compared to Dickensian conditions.
Experiences with VA can be wildly different.
Disability can be easy or hard to get, depending on which generation you got injured in and whether or not they think you're playing it up. I've heard both people saying that they were pushed to claim disability when they didn't actually need it, as well as men who definitely needed it getting turned down.
Actual health care at the VA can be really uneven too. A friend of mine got a knee injury and was basically given a three month supply of an addictive painkiller and told to go sit at home and take however much he wanted.
What do you think happens to a young man in his prime who is stuck glued to a couch other than sit around playing video games drunk all day addicted to painkillers?
Well, in his case at least, he managed to get off of them and turn himself around before it became too destructive, but the lack of care he was shown by the doctors put him at significant risk for permanent harm.
I've heard other horror stories, and stories of nothing but praise as well. YMMV.
I know a guy who retired from the Air Force and got 100% disability that included tinnitus, ptsd, and something about his joints. This person was an aircraft maintainer and never saw combat, although he was deployed a few times. The lady evaluating his case really hooked him up, he brags bout it all the time. He gets retirement and disability.
There are reddits, discords, and even companies that assist vets in working the system. many of whom never got close to deployment and were never combat arms. If you're persistent you'll get paid. As a combat vet it makes me sick.
I’m a 100% P&T veteran and you have no idea what you’re talking about so stop
i watch Caleb Hammers financial audit show on youtube and while I'm sure it's not all accurate, every single veteran they have on that show (keep in mind these are people with money iasues) who without exception get a package that would qualify as a part time salary, many get more than a full salary and often work other jobs. The system is healthy
What leads you to dare say that?
> It had been assumed that Byfield died around 1850, but O'Keeffe's discovery of the veteran's 1851 memoir, along with additional evidence from newspapers and archives, adds new chapters to his astonishing life story.
I hate to be obnoxious, but what O'Keeffe did was happen upon a rare book in a small library the he recognized had been written by a semi-famous author. Instead of scanning it (or having it scanned) and putting it on archive.org, then writing his article, he's actively concealing these "new chapters" from the world. My assumption is that he's planning to put it into print in order to make a few bucks.
According to the Google Books entry (which I don't quite trust, because why would there be a Google Books entry?), it's 80 pages, so he'll either have to write a hefty introduction of what seems to be a story about a disabled vet talking about Jesus, or he'll combine the war narrative and the post-war narrative (both obviously long out of copyright) into a single volume and hawk that, and the article he's written will be the introduction.
I guess I advise him to self-publish and to make sure to also target Christian bookstores rather than just academic libraries? Survey a brick and mortar Christian bookstore of possible and get an idea about what covers sell?
Isn't this the book?
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/61f15583-612e-4ea5-aa...