206 Private 1st West Indian Regiment of Foot
Joseph Reffell was born somewhere in Africa in 1808 and enlisted in the 1st West Indian Regiment of Foot on 16 November 1826.
He was discharged on 13 February 1834 at Dominica with a military service of 16 years and 334 days not including a period of 15 days imprisonment for refusing to attend pack drill. The discharge was due to being medically unfit due to mental disability perhaps due to constitutional diathesis.
The West India Regiments were infantry units of the British Army recruited from and normally stationed in the British colonies of the Caribbean between 1795 and 1927. In 1888 the two West India Regiments then in existence were reduced to a single unit of two battalions. This regiment differed from similar forces raised in other parts of the British Empire in that it formed an integral part of the regular British Army.