3-016-782 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

John Gilliatt, of Brigg, Lincolnshire, above one hundred years old, 1864. Engraving from a photograph by Mr. Empringham, master of the Brigg Union Workhouse, of a '...remarkable veteran...born...according to his own belief, in the year 1761. If he be right in this date he has attained the age of 103...In his early manhood he was pressed into the Navy...He does not seem to have remained long at sea, for about 1791 he enlisted into the 7th Dragoons. This regiment being sent into Holland, he...[fought in] the campaign of 1793...in a personal conflict with a French cavalry soldier, he lost the middle finger of his left hand...Having been discharged...in consequence of the injury...Gilliatt returned to Lincolnshire...But a pressgang visited the house in pursuit of him, so he had to leap out of a window and run away...[and] enlisted into the Army once more...He soon joined his regiment in London. Being sometimes on guard about the palace, he was more than once familiarly addressed by King George III. and Queen Charlotte. His regiment was ordered to Ireland, where it remained five years, engaged in suppressing the Rebellion of 1798...John was invalided and pensioned on account of his partial blindness, caused by the heat and sand of Egypt'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.