THE YORKSHIRE COAST
The amazing tale of Yorkshire’s bravest hotel manager
Scarborough born - and -bred Robert Walton champions off-beat attractions in the tourism sector - studying epitaphs on his tour of cemeteries and recording other talking points on his UK travels. ‘I’ve learned about some amazing people. Cemeteries are understandably little-talked about as places to visit or research but it is important to discover out-of-the-ordinary stories about people and we should remember them,’ he says. He travelled extensively in his career as a construction consultant and here he tells the extraordinary story of Thomas George Johnson, who was appointed a cavalry officer in Wakefield, and survived The Charge of the Light Brigade …and later went on to manage the then-prestigious Royal Hotel in Scarborough before being finally being laid to rest in the town.
Thomas George Johnson ended up as the manage r of one of Scarborough’s most celebrated hotels … a world away from the day he galloped towards the guns in The Charge of the Light Brigade. At just 13, he had signed up for a cavalr y career, continuing a family tradition. He started as a private
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but at 24, he became a corporal in the 13th Light Dragoons (later the 13th Hussars), and a sergeant at 29. He set off for the Crimea that is currently in the news with the RussianUkrainian conf lict, and endured extremes of heat, thirst and hunger for 17 days on patrol against Cossacks.
While aboard a troop ship he suffered ‘a severe accident,’ falling through a hatch and ending up in hospital for three weeks. (‘I was lucky not be killed,’ he said). He soon returned to his regiment in time for what became the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, October 25 1854.