Early Years
Richard Sharpe is born in London circa June 26, 1777 (he believes that he may be 22 during the early months of 1799) to a prostitute residing in "Cat Lane", and an unknown father. When Sharpe is three, his mother is killed in the Gordon Riots, leaving him an orphan.
With no other known relatives to claim him, Sharpe is deposited in Jem Hocking's foundling home at Brewhouse Lane, Wapping, where he spends his days picking his assigned quota of oakum. He is malnourished and regularly beaten, resulting in his being undersized for his age. Because of this, he is eventually sold to a master chimney sweep to train as an 'apprentice' at the relatively late age of 12. Fearing the high mortality rate among apprentice sweeps (who are forced to climb inside chimneys and remove the soot by hand), Sharpe flees to the Rookery of St Giles (a form of slum), and is taken in by prostitute (and later bar-owner) Maggie Joyce. He stays under Maggie's protection for three years, learning various forms of thieving.
After killing a gang leader during a fight over Maggie, he escapes from London to Yorkshire at the age of fifteen (by creating this back story, Bernard Cornwell made the actor Sean Bean's Yorkshire accent part of the canon of the series). It is possible that Sharpe learned to play cricket in Yorkshire, as in Sharpe's Waterloo the Duke of Wellington attests that "Sharpe bowls fiendish". He also played while training with the Rifles at Shorncliffe Redoubt, (Sharpe's Fury).
Within six months of his arrival in Yorkshire, Sharpe kills a second man, the landlord of the tavern where he is working, in a fight over a local girl.
To avoid arrest, Sharpe takes the "King's shilling", joining the 33rd Foot, as a result of the blandishments of Recruiting sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill. The regiment (popularly known as "The Havercakes", due to the oatcake the recruiting sergeants display on their bayonets to attract hungry potential recruits) is first sent to Flanders in 1794, where Sharpe fights in his first battle, at Boxtel. The next year, he and his regiment are posted to India under the command of the British East India Company.
Read more about this topic: Sharpe (novel Series)
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