NAM.1968-06-337-1

Thomas Brown, born at Kirkleatham late a private Man in Brigadier Bland’s Regiment of Dragoons. Line engraving by L P Boitard, 1743. Thomas or Tom Brown was a blacksmith’s son from North Yorkshire and joined the King’s Regiment of Dragoons less than a year before serving with it at Dettingen. Aged 28 at the time of the battle, he rescued the regimental guidon after it was captured by the French, being wounded eight times and losing two horses from under him. George II offered Brown a commission but he was illiterate and so unable to accept it - instead, he was placed in one of the Troops of Horse Guards. However, two musket balls in his back could not be extracted and he soon had to retire, dying of his wounds aged 31 at Yarm in January 1746.

Dettingen, Battle of, 1743 (War of the Austrian Succession 1740-1748)