Dumfries and the Napoleonic Wars

Today's the day ........................ for local history

A trip into Dumfries this evening to hear a talk by Curator, Judith Hewitt about the unexpected links of Dumfries & Galloway to the Napoleonic Wars.  

Today was an appropriate day for this to be happening - it being the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, which effectively concluded a war that had raged for 23 years and ended French attempts to dominate Europe.  We heard about local heroes who played a part in the fighting and about prisoners of war who were brought to the area after the war.  And then the talk ended up with a short walk through the historic graveyard of St Michael's Church, to visit four Waterloo-connected graves.

The graveyard itself is a fascinating place, covering some five acres and containing the graves of an unbelievable 80,000 people.  As you can imagine, there's a wealth of local history information to be found here - but that would need many blips .......................!