OBITUARY: Charles Stephen Brigden, Arnprior Chronicle, January 1915.
Charles Brigden: The Prince of a Veteran
After a long, active and useful career Charles laid down the cares of life at the home of his son, Mr. William Brigden, in Montreal on Thursday last, his dissolution being due to general disability from weight of years.
For thirty one years he was a resident of Arnprior, a fine old gentleman of soldierly bearing, who loved to recall the days of his service for Queen and country.
The deceased was born in Woolwich, England, in the year 1828 and at the age of 18 he enlisted in the Royal Horse Artillery, a regiment that is famous in British history. In the regiment he served until he attained the rank of riding master, and it was always a matter of pride for him to relate that among those who came under him were the late King Edward (VII) and the present Duke of Connaught (brother of King Edward VII).
He served in the war of 1854 - 1856 (The Crimean War) and for his services he received a medal from the Turkish government and another from the British government for the heroes of Sebastopol.
At the close of the war, and after the Treaty of Paris, he was one of fourteen men picked from British regiments to receive the gift of two cannon from the French government on Woolwich Common and he was specially complimented on that occasion by Queen Victoria, in person. (Arnprior Chronicle, January 1915.)
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Charles served with the Royal Artillery in Turkey. There is a chance that he might have observed the famous "Charge of the Light Brigade". Old records of the Albert Street Cemetery showed a Brigden burial and family members, now deceased, reported that the grave was once marked by a stone and surrounded by an iron fence. Current records do not show the grave.
(Currently the family believe that Charles Stephen Brigden, his first wife, Elizabeth Caroline Cannon, and his second wife, Catherine Warbrick are all buried in the same plot in the Albert Street Cemetery.)