An Astonishing Infantryman

Steve McCarthy recounts the extraordinary story of a real-life ‘Sharpe’, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Hill of the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

In the churchyard in Hennock, Devon, a plain box tomb bears the inscription: ‘Lieutenant Colonel John Humphrey Edward Hill, CB, Royal Welch Fusiliers’. Inside the church, a plaque briefly outlines the remarkable career of a soldier who has been compared to Bernard Cornwell’s fictional hero Richard Sharpe.

‘Jack’ Hill, as he was known in the Army, joined up at 18 and went on to fight on three continents in a single decade: in Holland in 1799, Egypt in 1801, Denmark in 1807, and the Caribbean in 1809. In the 1810s, he marched with the Duke of Wellington across the Iberian Peninsula and into France, before being seriously wounded at Waterloo in 1815.

A recently published archive of Hill’s letters home records his experiences as he climbed the ranks. They document his role in seven major campaigns and some 40 individual actions, including at Albuera, Salamanca, Vitoria and the invasion of France. We also learn of Hill’s service in the Portuguese army and the various misfortunes, including a shipwreck, which he endured during his extraordinary military career.

This is a story of endurance, adventure, frustration and survival: the captivating rise of a boy from a Dartmoor village to become one of Wellington’s ‘astonishing infantry’. 

About the speaker

Steve McCarthy is a former senior civil servant who retired after a 42-year career in the Ministry of Defence. During that time, he had various roles including in procurement and international affairs. His final positions were as Director of International Security Policy (2011-14), then as the senior defence civilian and co-leader of the Defence Staff in the British Embassy, Washington DC (2014-18). He was appointed CBE in the 2019 New Year’s Honours.