Admission as an out-pensioner certificate of Private Joseph Rook, Coldstream Guards, 1856

Joseph Rook (1832-1857) enlisted in the Coldstream Guards at Lincoln on 8 January 1855. A labourer, five foot ten and a half inches tall, with light hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion, he was apparently an ideal recruit for the Guards. After four months in the Crimea during the winter of 1855-1856, however, he contracted tuberculosis and was discharged 'as unfit for further service' on 5 August 1856.

Because Surgeon-Major James Monro, who examined Joseph Rook at the Coldstream Guards Hospital on 21 July 1856, adjudged him to have contracted his disease in the service. Rook was therefore eligible to become an out-pensioner of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. He received a pension of 6d per day for six months. Rook died of consumption in his home town of Saxilby, Lincolnshire on 28 February 1857.