ABSTRACT
William Hutton (1723–1815) was the brother of soldier Samuel Hutton, and his family history serves as a rare window into multiple generations of kin surrounding a man in the ranks. This volume containing an account of Samuel’s childhood, marriage, and offspring comes from William’s manuscript family history. William’s daughter, Catherine (Samuel’s niece) edited it and published the first edition in 1816, with subsequent editions appearing in 1816 and 1841. The frontispiece of the 1872 edition declared that the book came from manuscripts left by Hutton that were then augmented by Llewellynn Jewitt “with the addition of numerous illustrative notes, original matter, . . . etc.” On page ix of the preface, Jewitt claimed to have “altered and rounded” William’s original prose to make it less “quaint”, but he simultaneously credited his new edition with restoring parts of the original manuscript that had been excised from Catherine’s earlier editions. While much of this version of Samuel’s life matched that found in the Reliquary, there are some interesting divergences, particularly when it speaks of his rather dishonorable conduct toward a serving maid who believed he planned to marry her, and its comment on his lack of desire for children in his marriage to Catherine Keith. Both of these characterisations fit with other depictions of soldiers. The Old Bailey had accounts of domestic servants in this time period providing soldiers with goods and money on the prospect of marriage. 11 It is also interesting to note that, though Samuel appeared to have enjoyed his life as a soldier and his wife was inured to the difficulties of army life, none of his children followed in their parents’ footsteps by enlisting or marrying soldiers.
