Nehemiah Wharton letters

Nehemiah Wharton joined the army of Parliament in the summer of 1642. He had been apprenticed to George Willingham, a merchant in London. Wharton has variously been described as a sergeant and as a ‘subaltern officer’ in the Earl of Essex’s army. Gaunt maintained that he was ‘from the literate upper levels of society’ and went on to describe him as ‘from the urban artisan class rather than the landed rural elite’ (2003, p63).

He wrote a series of letters between 16 August and 7 October 1642 to his apprentice master and these provide an invaluable insight, not only to life as a soldier but also to the early days of the Civil Wars.

Here to read them