Joseph Moss Balchin (1777 - 1854)

Husband of Harriet Barrington Loggie (Foster) Balchin — married 7 Jan 1802 in Saint Andrews Church, Plymouth, Devon

Descendants

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Miniature of Captain Joseph Moss Balchin.

Military Service

• Commissioned Lieutenant: 1 May 1794
• Served in: Surrey Regiment of Fencible Cavalry
• Promoted Captain: February 1798
• Served in: 6th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Dragoons
• Resigned Commission: 1805

See also / Balchin Family Society

Biography

Joseph Moss Balchin was born in Guildford, Surrey on 12 August 1777, one of eight children of John Balchin (1744-1823) and Elizabeth Moss Barker (1745-1812). ^[1]

On 1 February 1793, Great Britain was once again at war. The declaration of war by the French Republic caught Great Britain at a disadvantage because it had both disbanded most of the newly raised regular regiments of 1776-1783 after the conflict with America had ended and reduced its own peacetime establishment to practically nil. While it immediately took steps to recruit its regular regiments for general service, it also established a regular force of Fencible Regiments for home service, to augment the embodied militia of the Kingdom. The Fencibles were recruited for the duration of the war only and were designed to liberate the regular army for service abroad.

With most regulars required overseas, the militia and the fencible units immediately became the main defence against the raids expected to be launched by the new revolutionary government in France. It was feared that the French entertained plans for landings in peripheral areas such as Cornwall and Wales to stir domestic unrest and had offered assistance to all seeking to overthrow their own monarchs. Since the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the revolutionary potential in Britain is a matter of some controversy but there was undoubtedly a revolutionary fringe, and the authorities were understandably nervous of the possibility of insurrection at home. ^[2]

The Surrey Regiment of Fencible Cavalry (Surrey Fencibles) was formed on 1 May 1794 under the command of Colonel George Onslow, the Earl of Onslow. On the same day 16-year-old Joseph was commissioned as a lieutenant in the regiment, his family having purchased the commission on his behalf. Because members of the militia and fencible units were tied to their own communities it was rare for them to be garrisoned locally. In its first years of service, the Surrey Fencibles were found in several locations before finally settling into their own barracks at Barnstaple in north Devon on Christmas Day 1795.

In July 1795 the Surrey Fencibles were located in London during a time of serious unrest. The government responded with the so-called Two Acts – an extension of the treason laws with the Treasonable Practices Act and the repressive Seditious Meetings Act 1795; detention without trial had already been in force since 1794 when habeas corpus was suspended. To support these laws, units such as the Surrey Fencibles were garrisoned wherever they were needed, to maintain law and order.

July 12 [1795]. A fifer, of the name of Lewis, went to the King's Arms public-house and called for some beer ; the man of the house observing him to be in liquor refused it to him, on which a quarrel ensued, and Lewis was turned out ; he soon collected a mob, on whom he imposed a tale of his companion having been crimped in the house, and then confined in the cellar, and that he with difficulty had escaped. The people, indignant, forgot that respect to the laws of their country which should at all times govern their conduct, and giving way to tile impulse of the moment broke open the door and destroyed every article of furniture that the house contained; when thus employed for about two hours the military appeared, and they dispersed. Lewis was however, taken into custody, and after examination at Bow-street, committed to Newgate, to take his trial for the offence.

[July] 13. The mob again assembled at Charing Cross, and on being driven from thence and Downing-street, where it is stated they broke some of Mr. Pitt's windows, they proceeded to St. George's Fields, where they gutted a recruiting house near the Obelisk, and likewise destroyed by fire the furniture one Edwards, a butcher. The horse guards, the City and Borrough Associations, and Lambeth Volunteers, at length arrived, headed by a magistrate, who read the Riot Act, but with no effect, when the horse guards galloped in among the crowd trampled down many, and severely wounded others. The military remained under arms all night.

A very large mob again assembled about the Royal George recruiting-house in St. George's Fields, on Tuesday evening, and took from the house that part of tile furniture which they had not destroyed on the preceding evening and burnt it in the road ; the timely arrival of three companies of the foot guards, a detachment of the life guards, and as many of the Surrey fencibles, prevented any further mischief; one man had his hand cut off by a life guardsman who was severely wounded by a brick which was thrown at him; and we are informed that a pistol was discharged by the soldiers. ^[3]

Later that year the Surrey Fencibles were in Gloucester.

Following a succession of poor grain harvests and the wholesale purchase of grain for brewing and export, there was an acute shortage of corn for local use in 1795, especially in south Wales. It was such an artificial scarcity of grain that was largely responsible for the revolution in France. In the first 4 months of the year, disturbances broke out in many parts of Wales. By September of that year, wheat and barley had at least doubled in price since the previous September, this heavily hit those classes which depended on corn for their daily subsidence. One of the most notable disturbances took place at Haverford west in August when a great crowd of colliers, women and children from Hook came marching down the High Street shouting 'One and All - One and All'. They fixed their attention on a ship loaded with butter in the harbour, but found their way blocked by firstly men of importance in the town, and secondly by 50 men of the Carmarthenshire Militia. The Riot Act was read, and the militia ordered to load with ball upon which the colliers turned and ran out of the town. Some were seized, the following day the Fishguard Fencibles were called in to replace the Militia.

The poor colliers of Gloucestershire were also starving. With the violence that results from extreme want, they helped themselves, wherever they could find bread. The Gloucester Journal at the time gave the following account of what happened on the banks of the Severn.

Upon the evening of November 10th, many persons assembled at Hamstalls in the parish of Awre in this County, where a vessel belonging to Evesham, and bound to Bristol with a carg0 of pease, oil, flour, timber, and wheat, was waiting for the tide. About twenty men boarded her, examined the lading, and upon discovering the flour, gave loud huzzas, when the bank was instantly covered with their comrades, who had many horses waiting, with which they proceeded to carry off the flour, though the trowmen (unable to defend the vessel and menaced with instant destruction) had offered to sell it to them at a reasonable price. About seven o’clock one of the trowmen contrived to slip ashore, ran to Newnham, and sent off an express to Gloucester for immediate military aid; but fortunately that assistance was nearer at hand. In consequence of some apprehension of a disturbance at Mitcheldean, an officer with a serjeant and ten file of the Essex Fencibles Cavalry, had marched into the place early in the morning, and upon the arrival of the express from Newnham instantly set forth for the scene of depradation under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Sewell and Lieutenant Wood, and headed by Mr. Pyrke, a magistrate of Little Dean. The freebooters fled in every direction, but five men, named Thomas Yemm, Thomas Rosser, Richard Brain, George Marfell, and John Meek, being the most active ringleaders were apprehended, some in the act of conveying away the flour upon packhorses, some had sacks of it upon their shoulders some were just landed from the vessel; and many were busy on the bank, which was strewn with flour, dividing the sacks into smaller quantities to render it more portable for even women and children were of the number.

The five men, evidently Foresters by their names, were fully committed on the following Tuesday to Gloucester Castle, there to be tried at the Spring Assizes, being guarded thither by one hundred of the Surrey Fencibles, who had arrived in Newnham at three o’clock previously. Shortly afterwards, the serjeant of the military called out on this occasion, was severely bruised by a stone thrown at him by some desperadoes as he was riding near Mitcheldean. ^[4]

In February 1798 Joseph Balchin was promoted to Captain. ^[5] In 1799, it was decided to disband all the fencible regiments whose service was restricted to Great Britain and Ireland, except for those who had volunteered for General Service in Europe. For those remaining, their pay was raised, and disability pensions were instituted at the same time. The remaining fencible regiments were ordered disbanded following the peace negotiated with France at Amiens in 1802. The officers and men of the disbanded units were given the option of transferring to permanent regiments in the British Army. Captain Joseph Moss Balchin opted to be transferred to the 6th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Dragoons.

Leaving Romford in June 1798, the regiment proceeded to Windsor, and encamped in the forest, where a numerous body of troops was assembled, and exercised in the presence of King George III and the royal family. His Majesty reviewed the regiment and it afterwards proceeded into cantonments, the headquarters being at Uxbridge. In December 1799 it marched to Birmingham; in August 1800 to Bristol and in June 1801 to Exeter.

On 7 January 1802, Joseph married Harriet Barrington Loggie of Devonport (Plymouth) the daughter of James Loggie and Elizabeth Foster at Pennycross (Plymouth). ^[6]With their first child, [|Harriet St John Balchin], born in 1803, by 1805 it was probably about time for Joseph to retire honourably from the military. The sale of his commission enabled him to return to Guildford and to live quite comfortably as a man of independent means. The 1841 Census shows Joseph living at Church Gardens, Dorking, about 12 miles west of Guildford. ^[7] Joseph Moss Balchin passed away in April 1854 in Dorking. ^[8].

The Balchins raised 8 children in Surrey, two of who migrated to Australia.

• Josephine Elizabeth Balchin married Henry Norris in 1832. The couple migrated to Australia and Josephine died in Victoria in 1882.
• James Balchin followed his sister to Australia and married Sarah Braginton in 1849 in Adelaide. He died in Kangarilla in 1885.

Sources

1. ↑ "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JW26-PWL : 20 March 2020), Joseph Moss Balchin, 1777.
2. ↑ The Forgotten Army: Fencible Regiments of Great Britain 1793 – 1816. Ron McGuigan. https://www.napoleon-series.org/military-info/organization/Britain/fencibles/c_fencibles.html
3. ↑ The Freemason’s Magazine for July 1795. Home News. Page 67 https://www.masonicperiodicals.org/periodicals/fmm/issues/fmm_01071795/
4. ↑ The Personalities of the Forest of Dean (1863) by Henry George Nicholls. Page 100. https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/_/gmSZ8Lj-6TkC?hl=en
5. ↑ The London Gazette Number 14088, 3 February 1798 to 6 February 1798, page 112
6. ↑ "England, Devon, Parish Registers, 1538-1912," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KC9J-WK8 : 16 November 2020), Joseph Moss Balchin and Harriet Barrington Loggie, 1802, Marriage; from "Church of England parish registers 1538-1911," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing Devon, archive reference , images provided by FamilySearch International.
7. ↑ England and Wales Census, 1841," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MQKC-1SM : 22 May 2019), Joseph Moss Balchin, Dorking, Surrey, England, United Kingdom; from "1841 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO HO 107, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey.
8. ↑ "England Deaths and Burials, 1538-1991", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JC2N-P35 : 16 March 2020), Joseph Moss Balchin, 1854