The Parish of Piddlehinton has laid claim to Ann as this is where she ended her life and she is buried in the little churchyard behind St Mary’s Church. I would not have known about this remarkable woman if it had not been for the efforts of the churchwarden and local historical group who in 2000 wanted to honour her life and raise funds for the restoration of her gravestone. In fact however Ann spent most of her life in Fordington and Dorchester only moving to Piddlehinton shortly after 1861.
Grave of Ann Winzer in St Mary’s
Churchyard Piddlehinton
Heroines Gravestone
Ann’s story is told on her gravestone as shown in the picture above. The text reads as follows:-
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ANN
THE BELOVED WIFE OF
JAMES WINZER
WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE
NOVEMBER 28th 1873
AGED 82 YEARS.
-----------
She was a waterloo heroine who assisted at that famous battle AD.1815 by aiding & assisting the sick and wounded she endured many hardships having followed the British army from Brussels to Paris. From Paris to Dunney returned to England & from thence to the rock of Gibraltar where she remained 4 years. She afterwards resided in this parish where she received a pension through the instrumentality of Colonel Astell with that of many other officers by whose kindness this stone is raised as a tribute of respect to a long life spent in true and faithful service.
It needs to be remembered that Ann’s nursing efforts were some 40 years before the legendary Florence Nightingale led her party of nurses to help the soldiers of the Crimea. Florence came from a wealthy background and her family initially refused to allow her to become a nurse because ‘it was not considered a suitable profession for a well educated woman’. Ann came from a different social background with none of the advantages Florence had, yet Ann clearly endeared herself to the soldiers of Wellington’s Army by her willingness to share their hardships and do all that she could to relieve their suffering. Her story starts however back in Fordington.
Birth & Baptism in Fordington
Ann Keats was baptised in St George’s Church in Fordington on 28th January 1795. Although the age given on her tombstone suggests that she may have been born as early as 1791 census returns lead me to believe that she was probably born in 1794. Her parents Joseph Keats and Elizabeth Brine had married in Fordington in 1776 and produced 2 much older siblings for her, Sally [in 1777] and James [in 1781]. Her birth must have come as a bit of a surprise as more than a decade had passed since their last child had been born.
Marriage in St George’s Church
Ann lived and grew up within the sound of the church bells at Fordington.
If, as I believe, she was born in 1794 she was only 17 when she married
there on 1st April 1811 to James Winzer. James was the son of Philip
Winzer a native of Fordington and his wife Mary Purchase from Dorchester.
He was two years older than Ann, having been baptised in St George’s
Church on 17th June 1792. He was the fourth of at least seven children,
and would have known Ann from early childhood. Clearly their union
was blessed by both families as they would have required parental consent.
At the time of James marriage to Ann he gave his place of residence as the Parish of Holy Trinity in Dorchester, the same church where his parents had married in 1784. This is one of three main churches in Dorchester High Street and they were all regularly used by soldiers at the nearby Fordington barracks, so its possible that James had already enlisted by 1811 and was based there.
Birth of James Winzer junior
On 20th December 1811, nine months after they married, James & Ann had their first child, a son, whom they named James after his father. Just two days later he was baptised in St Peters Church in Dorchester.
Napoleon & Mobilisation for War
With the abdication of Napoleon in Paris on 11th April 1814 and his banishment to Elba, James and Ann must have felt that a period of peace was stretching before them after all the uncertainties of the previous 12 years.
On the 26th February 1815 however Napoleon gave his guards the slip
and escaped to the mainland, marching towards Paris, amassing an Army
as he went. On the 13th March 1815, six days before Napoleon reached
Paris, the powers of the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw. Four
days later the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria and Prussia mobilised
armies to defeat him.
The Parish Registers for Fordington have regular entries for baptisms
for children of soldiers families from several Regiments. Detachments
of the 12th and 13th Light Dragoons were based at the Barracks in Fordington
from 1813 right up to February 1815 when there is a sudden cessation
in entries, because of mobilisation. Accounts of the battle of Waterloo
also confirm that these Regiments formed a key part of Wellingtons Army
and indeed a charge by the 12th Light Dragoons was described by Wellington
as “beautiful”!. <<< 12th Light Dragoons 1812
We know that Ann travelled with her husband’s Regiment to Brussels,
where Wellington defeated Napoleon on 18 Jun 1815. It is not known whether
Ann took her three year old son James with her, but as war had been declared
it is possible that she left him behind with relatives in Fordington.
The Aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo
Wellington lost around 15,000 dead and wounded at Waterloo, and Blücher of the Prussian Army another 7,000. Napoleon lost over 25,000 dead and injured, with 8,000 taken prisoner. It is difficult to imagine the scene of death and destruction that must have confronted Ann, but some idea may be gleaned from the following eye witness account taken 4 days after the battle:-
—Major W. E Frye After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819
June 22 1815: This morning I went to visit the field of battle, which is a little beyond the village of Waterloo, on the plateau of Mont St Jean; but on arrival there the sight was too horrible to behold. I felt sick in the stomach and was obliged to return. The multitude of carcasses, the heaps of wounded men with mangled limbs unable to move, and perishing from not having their wounds dressed or from hunger, as the Allies were, of course, obliged to take their surgeons and wagons with them, formed a spectacle I shall never forget. The wounded, both of the Allies and the French, remain in an equally deplorable state.
The day after the Battle of Waterloo
Among
the dead were 6 officers from the 12th and 13th Light
Dragoons three from each Regiment. The
picture below depicts Captain James Gubbins of the 13th Light
Dragoons who was killed at Waterloo by a cannon ball during a charge.
[pictured left]
In all the 12th had 6 officers and 106 men killed or wounded and the 13th had 10 officers and 80 men. Although these Regiments were made up of many detatchments, much of the 13th for example had been mustered from Ireland, among the dead and injured must have been friends of James and Ann. After the Battle Wellington said 'Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won'.
The above account suggests that the Army had already left Waterloo by the 22nd of June and taken their surgeons with them. We know from the inscription on the gravestone that Ann tended the sick and dying at the actual Battle, but also that she went onto Paris with the her husbands Regiment, and no doubt the walking wounded. Wellington entered Paris on the 7th July and camped on the Champs Elysees. It was in Paris that Napoleon abdicated for a second time and was later sent into exile on St Helena.
Ann’s gravestone also records that she went onto a place called Duney [or Dunney] and then returned to England. As the fighting was now over this may have been to collect her son James -- if he had indeed been left behind as conjectured earlier. She is then said to have gone out to Gibralter to look after wounded British Soldiers and this must have been with the blessing of the Army as she remained there for 4 years and they would have had to support her.
Return to Dorchester & Birth of Joseph Winzer
By 1824 James and Ann had returned to live in Dorchester and James was working locally as a stone mason having left the Army. A second son, they named Joseph, was baptised on 25th August 1824 by the Reverend John Morton Colson the Rector of St Peter’s church in Dorchester.
By June 1841 James was still in Dorchester but was now working as a journeyman plasterer, with his eldest son James junior who had also learnt the trade. The family including Ann, and the 17 year old Joseph were all living in the High Street, which suggests they had sufficient income to rent accommodation there.
Ten years later James and Ann are still in Dorchester but have moved to Shire Hall Lane whilst Joseph who had also followed his fathers trade had moved temporarily to Hove in Sussex where he was is in lodgings. About 1854 Joseph has a daughter Caroline who was born in Hastings but I have not been able to locate a marriage or baptism.
By 1861 however Joseph and Caroline are back living with James and Ann in Dorchester. Joseph is working with his father as a Journeyman Carpenter.
Move to Piddlehinton
Shortly after this they move to Piddlehinton where Colonel Astell of the North Staffordshire Regiment arrived in 1862 to live with his family at West Lodge. Colonel Astell was instrumental in campaigning for Ann to receive a pension in recognition for her dedicated service to the soldiers who fought at the Battle of Waterloo.
By 1871 Joseph, then 47 years old and a Chelsea Out Pensioner, is still living with them. When Ann died on 28th November 1873 Colonel Astell and other officers wanted to pay tribute to her memory so they paid for and had erected the impressive gravestone shown at the start of this biography, which now stands in St Mary’s churchyard at Piddlehinton.
James Winzer lived another 18 months and was buried beside her on 12 May 1875. Their son Joseph then moved back to Fordington, living near Mushroom Bridge, where he died at the age of 57 in 1883.
<<< St Mary's Church, Piddlehinton
In the year 2000 a descendant of Ann’s, a Marjory Winzar who was still living in Dorchester in Colliton Street, helped in the campaign to raise funds for the restoration of Ann’s gravestone.