The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence

by William Lawrence, George Nugent-Bankes

Overview

Memoirs of Sergeant William Lawrence, a hero of the Peninsula and Waterloo campaigns, published posthumously in 1886 and edited by George Nugent Bankes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781023276672
Publisher:	Anson Street Press
Publication date:	03/28/2025
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

William Lawrence was a British soldier and memoirist best known for his firsthand account of military service during the Napoleonic Wars. Born in 1791 in Bryant’s Piddle (now Piddletrenthide), Dorset, England, Lawrence came from modest rural origins. At the age of fifteen, he enlisted in the British Army, joining the 40th Regiment of Foot, and served for nearly two decades, including most of the major campaigns of the Peninsular War (1808–1814) and the War of 1812.

Though uneducated in the formal sense, Lawrence possessed keen observational abilities and a strong memory, which later enabled him to recount his wartime experiences in detail. His military service took him to Spain, Portugal, South America, and France. He endured numerous battles, was wounded, captured, and even enslaved, but survived and was eventually honorably discharged.

In the 1830s, long after his retirement from active service and while working as a laborer in Studland, Dorset, Lawrence dictated his memoirs to a local gentleman, George Nugent Bankes. These recollections were compiled into The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence, though the manuscript remained unpublished until 1886, nearly two decades after Lawrence’s death in 1869.

Today, Lawrence is recognized as one of the rare working-class voices from the Napoleonic era whose testimony survives. His autobiography stands as a significant historical document, offering unique insight into the life of a common soldier in the British Army—untainted by official propaganda or elite perspective.