Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Donaldson, Joseph
DONALDSON, JOSEPH (1794–1830), author of ‘Recollections of the Eventful Life of a Soldier,’ was born in 1794 in Glasgow, where his father was in the employ of a mercantile house. With some school companions he ran away to sea and made a voyage to the West Indies, which disenchanted him of a sea-life, and he returned home and was again put to school by his father. Early in 1809 he again ran away, and without communicating with his friends enlisted in the old 94th (Scotch brigade). Joining his regiment, he accompanied it to Jersey, and afterwards to Spain, where it took part in the desperate defence of Fort Matagorda during the siege of Cadiz, and afterwards was with Picton's division in the principal battles and sieges in the Peninsula from 1811 to 1814. After the peace in 1814 the Scotch brigade was stationed in Ireland, where it was disbanded in 1818. In the meantime Donaldson married a young Irish girl, alluded to in some of his writings under the name of Mary MacCarthy, who subsequently bore him ten children. Early in 1815 he was discharged as sergeant, at the age of twenty-one, at the expiration of his limited-service engagement. Returning to Glasgow with his wife, he made a little money by the publication of his ‘Scenes and Sketches in Ireland.’ His hopes of obtaining employment in civil life having utterly failed, Donaldson went to London with his family, enlisted in the East India Company's service, and was employed as a recruiting-sergeant, at first in London and afterwards in Glasgow. This duty being very distasteful to him, he got himself transferred to the district staff, and was employed as head clerk in the Glasgow district staff office for some years, during which time he published his ‘Recollections of the Eventful Life of a Soldier’ and ‘Story of the War in the Peninsula.’ While in London he had found time to study anatomy and surgery, studies which he continued at Glasgow University. Having qualified as a surgeon, he took his discharge in 1827, and set up in medical practice at Oban in Argyleshire, where he remained until 1829. Failing of success, he left his wife and children in Glasgow, and, in the hope of improving his medical prospects, proceeded to London and afterwards to Paris, where he died of pulmonary disease in October 1830, at the age of thirty-six. Donaldson is stated to have been a frequent contributor of anonymous papers to the press. His three works above named, which give a vivid picture of soldier life in the Peninsula and in Ireland in his day, were republished in 1855 under the collective title of ‘Recollections of the Eventful Life of a Soldier’ (London and Glasgow, 8vo), for the benefit of his widow and a surviving daughter, then in distressed circumstances in Glasgow.
[Preface to Donaldson's Recollections, 1855.]