BRITAIN has just celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, which saw the defeat of the French army and the end of Napoleon’s ambitions for European dominance. A gravestone at All Saints' Church, Broughton, remembers Waterloo veteran Enoch Hall who was one of the guards who escorted Napoleon to exile in St Helena. But research by Earby History Society reveals all it not as it seems. Here are the society's findings.

ENOCH Hall was the school master at Elslack School from 1844 to 1872 and such was his reputation that several scholars were sent from Earby to be taught by him.

His story starts with an event at Broughton Church in 1910. The occasion was the erection of a memorial stone in the churchyard to the memory of Enoch Hall who, for several decades, had lain in an unmarked grave there.

The unveiling ceremony was reported in the Craven Herald and West Yorkshire Pioneer newspapers.

The event also acted as a reunion for several old boys who had attended the school 40 years earlier. The Rev CW Hamilton, rector of Broughton with Elslack, presided.

So, who was Enoch Hall and what was his story? Research has shown that there were a number of inaccuracies in the newspaper reports but it seems from the recollections of the former pupils that Hall was a strict disciplinarian quick to mete out corporal punishment which would not have been tolerated even in 1910.

The general consensus among his former pupils was that although Hall used the cane frequently it hadn’t done them any harm and many of them had gone on to successful careers in adult life.

Hall, the teacher, was described as six feet tall, somewhat corpulent and with clear and healthy skin, very white hair and “bore the impress of a gentleman”. He was a strict disciplinarian with a love of thoroughness and cleanliness.

The gravestone was erected by his scholars on June 16, 1910, as a token of their appreciation of him and his teaching.

Born in 1794, Enoch moved to Skipton as a child and was given a decent education. It was said he had a restless nature and not wanting to be tied down to a mundane clerical job, he decided to enlist in the army at a time when the country was under the threat of invasion by the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. There was almost certain to be plenty of action.

He enlisted aged 19 on September 16, 1813, at Leeds, being described as a clerk. Enoch was posted to the Hilsea Barracks near Portsmouth and, according to his former students, fought in the Peninsula War under Wellington and was at the battle Talavera. However this was in 1809 - four years before Hall enlisted.

One of his former pupils Elihu Wilkinson also refers to Hall being “amongst those who chased the French under General Soult over the Pyrenees” and the West Yorkshire Pioneer article mentions the battle of Toulouse. This was the last and bloodiest battle of the Peninsular campaign and it is likely that Hall was in the thick of it on April 10, 1814.

The 1815 muster (June 24 to September 24) places Hall in St Helena. This means that he could not have fought at Waterloo on June 18, 1815 and, indeed, he does not feature in the Waterloo medal lists.

The muster also indicates that he was unlikely to have been in the escort taking Bonaparte to St Helena as HMS Northumbria left England with Napoleon on board on August 7 arriving in St Helena on October 19. By then, Hall was already on St Helena.

The next record of Hall's army career is on October 25, 1815, when he was promoted to Corporal but on June 3, 1816, he was demoted to private. The reason was not recorded.

His battalion, the 2nd Battalion 53rd Regiment of Foot, remained on St Helena until 1817 and in June of that year they are recorded as being in Canterbury. It is here that Enoch Hall’s army career appears to end. On September 24, 1817, the 2nd Battalion was paid up and Hall was discharged on October 15.

His whereabouts are then a mystery for some 24 years. Did he come back to Skipton area and take up a clerical job or did he go off another adventure? Elihu Wilkinson remembers that Hall had a job in the Skipton Bank “and found that it suited him no better than before”. He also recalls that Hall “had a spell as clerk in the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company office at Skipton”.

The 1841 census suggests that he was living with his widowed mother in Gargrave. His brother, Samuel, was farming at Skelton Grange Farm, Hunslet, and was also a land agent at that time.

The newspaper article tells that he was offered the job of school master at Elslack in 1844 by James Lane Fox, of Bramham Park and owner of Elslack estate, following the resignation of Charles Tunnicliffe, (who was later to found and run a school at Kelbrook). He was paid a fee of £25 per year with a rent-free cottage and two closes of land.

It was recalled by his former pupils that each year on October 19 to commemorate the arrival of Napoleon on St Helena, he put his cane away in his desk for the day although they would have preferred a days holiday instead.

Hall was school master at Elslack for 28 years.

One has to conclude that Hall was probably a bit of a romancer about his exploits during the Napoleonic War.

Harry Speight, Yorkshire historian and writer of local guide books, recalls in his book Through Airedale from Goole to Malham: "Often during our many weeks stays at this place (Elslack) have we chatted with the old man (Enoch Hall) who was full of anecdotes and stories of his early soldier life abroad."

One can imagine him sitting in the tavern at Pick Hill (The Tempest Arms), surrounded by locals enthralled by tales, whether true or not, of Wellington and Napoleon and those distant, and for a young man, exciting times.