He was said to be a member of the Church of England, and his commanding officer, Col. A. W Drayson, recorded: 'He can read an easy narrative, can write, and possesses some knowledge of the four elementary simple rules of Arithmetic'. He also had a certificate showing he was 'a fair swimmer'.
His career record shows he served abroad in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Malta, Egypt and somewhere else which we can't make out through the ravages of time and Victorian handwriting. He won a bronze star medal in Egypt in 1882.
He had no wife or children listed and was never promoted or reduced in rank, and if he was wounded, it wasn't recorded. His next of kin was his mother, Sarah, who lived at 1 Oxford Street, Newtown, and he had a younger brother, Henry at nearby 13 Catherine Street. In the years 1877 to 1885, when the record ends, he saved more than £18 in the regimental saving bank which is a fair amount for the time. There wasn't a war on when Walter Hill joined so he was officially on reserve at 2 shillings a day Corporals got 2s 6d, Sergeants 3 shillings, and Company Sergeant-Majors 3s 6d.
He was given £1 a year to buy a pair of boots, two shirts, two pairs of socks and a stock while NCO's were given a tunic, trousers and chako ( presumably a shako or tall hat ) every seven years. Every man was given a haversack and one pence a mile travelling allowance. Interestingly army rejects were entitled automatically to jobs as Post Office messengers in rural areas or as Metropolitan policemen. ?
Under discipline rules, there were 11 chances of being sentenced to death, ranging from mutiny, cowardice and desertion to giving false alarms, sleeping on duty or losing a weapon. Prison with hard labour and forfeiture of all pensions was the sentence for 12 serious offences such as using 'traitorous words against the Queen or other member of the Royal family' harbouring deserters, being drunk on duty and being made prisoner by neglect.
Lesser crimes such as being found more than a mile from camp without leave, overloading waggons, selling, losing or mistreating a horse or 'vexatious appeals from a regimental court martial' were dealt with individually by officers. If that wasn't bad enough, any soldier pretending to be ill or deliberately mutilating himself to get a discharge could receive a court martial, and then kept in the Army doing menial work. And a soldier couldn't get married without written permission unless he had seven years service and at least one good conduct badge.
Walter Hill was an ordinary squaddie who saw a good portion of the world at Queen Victoria's expense. We don't know if he was discharged in 1885 or if he was killed - his record just peters out. But a long forgotten, otherwise anonymous gunner has had a brief moment of fame more than 115 years later, and that's more than most of his colleagues.
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