Picture the scene, the residents of Beeston, Nottinghamshire had been raising money for some time now. After the return of a Beeston resident from the war, the Beeston Patriotic Fund was organised to provide tributes of respect for the wounded and a memorial to the Fallen. They were determined to give a “welcome home” fit for heroes, for the sons of the village who had fought in the Crimean War of 1854-1856.
Word came that 20 year old Hazahel Leivers, a private in the 7th Royal Fusiliers, was expected to arrive home in Beeston on Thursday 20th March 1856. Hazahel had lost his right leg at the Battle of the Great Redan on 8th September 1855, during the Siege of Sevastopol. A shell landed close to him and instantly blew off his leg. A fellow soldier, also from Nottingham, dragged him to safety.
After weeks in hospital in Turkey, most probably Scutari where Florence Nightingale was reforming the conditions, Hazahel arrived back in England in December 1855. A few more weeks were spent at the Military Hospital in Chatham before his discharge from the army with a meagre pension of just one shilling a day.
The anticipated arrival of Beeston’s war hero Hazahel Leivers was the cause of great excitement. Assembled at the railway station that Thursday, waiting for Hazahel Leivers to arrive on the train from London, were the brass band ready to play and the dignitaries ready with their speech. A special chair was also waiting (possibly an armchair or wheelchair?). The villagers were also out in force to welcome their fellow Beestonian back from the war.
Imagine the disappointment when the hero of the hour did not get off the train. Held up at Chatham, Hazahel was now due the following day. Disappointed, the committee decide to present another war hero who had already been home a few weeks, with his particular chair (it had supposed to be a joint presentation) and gave a speech of gratitude and thanks to him. The villagers, still rather despondent at not seeing Hazahel, dispersed to their homes.
The next day, before sunrise, “two urchins” playing near the railway station in Beeston saw Hazahel at the station. They begged him to give them his false leg to prove to the villagers that he had indeed arrived!
Running into the village, holding Hazahel’s leg aloft, they shouted “He’s come! He’s come!”.
Within twenty minutes the welcoming committee had reassembled with the chair, and soon a crowd had gathered at the station. Hazahel was presented with the chair and carried towards the village. On the hero’s arrival a salute of several guns was fired. The procession halted and gave “three mighty cheers”. The inhabitants came out of every house as he passed. One of them gave him a glass of wine and hot cross bun in honour of it being Good Friday. They then accompanied Hazahel to his parents’ home. Before he went inside one of the committee gave a rousing speech.
Addressing the wounded soldier, he said, “Hazahel Leivers we are come to welcome you back from the wars in which you have lost a leg in our cause, and as a mark of our sympathy we present you with the chair in which you now sit and which you have been carried from the station. May you enjoy many hours of ease and happiness therein; and we trust your wild oats are left with your limb in front of the Redan; and as you are not devoid of natural talent, we hope that talent will be improved by reading and study, that you may obtain a respectable position in the village to which we now welcome you, and depend upon it you will meet with encouragement from the higher classes, who will gladly help you rise to a position of eminence in the village.”
Private Leivers then responded giving his thanks saying he felt greatly obliged to the inhabitants for their kindness, and he would try to deserve their esteem.
He was then delivered to his parents and the villagers returned to their homes. (Details from The Sun, London, England dated 31st March 1856 and The Nottingham Journal 28th March 1856)
What did the future hold for Hazahel Leivers?
Less than a year after his arrival back from the Crimea, Hazahel was married. He worked as a lace worker, a popular means of employment in the villages around Nottingham, and had two daughters. One daughter died unmarried aged 25. The other married a policeman and moved to London. Hazahel eventually moved south to live with her.
From his welcome back to Beeston in March 1856 to his move south in the late 1880s, Hazahel was a familiar sight in both Beeston and the city of Nottingham. He would regularly be seen out wearing his red Chelsea Pensioner uniform with his tricorn hat. Known as Sweater Leivers or Peggy Leivers, he remained a war hero and was treated as such. In 1892 he became an “in-pensioner” and went to live at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London with other army veterans. Hazahel spent nearly 23 years at Chelsea and died in 1915 at the age of 79. He is buried at Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, in an area designated for Chelsea Pensioners.
This photo shows three soldiers who lost limbs during the Crimean War and who were visited by Queen Victoria at Chatham Military Hospital in 1855. (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) No doubt the clothes and false leg would have been familiar to Hazahel Leivers. Unfortunately no photographs have been found of Hazahel himself.
Below are some modern day Chelsea Pensioners dressed in their traditional red uniforms and tricorn hats, unchanged from the days of Hazahel Leivers
