ON an October morning exactly 150 years ago on Monday, Lord Cardigan led the most famous cavalry charge in history, as 673 men of the Light Brigade thundered into the valley of Death.

Among the ranks of those who braved the volley and thunder of the Russian cannonshells at Balaklava were two men with Salisbury connections.

Captain Augustus Webb had his right leg smashed by a cannon ball in the charge.

Three cavalrymen came to his rescue, carrying him back up the valley under constant fire, and their gallantry was rewarded with the Victoria Cross.

Captain Webb came under the care of Florence Nightingale (whose family home was at Embley Park) but, despite her ministrations, Captain Webb died of his wounds.

A memorial tablet to him can be found in the north transept of Salisbury Cathedral.

Florence Nightingale also provides a link to Charles Wiltshire Short, who was born in the parish of St Martin's and enlisted in the Hussars in 1851, at the age of 18.

Short by name and by nature (he was just 5ft 7in tall), he was a tailor by trade.

He served in Turkey and the Crimea, fighting not just at Balaklava but also at Inkerman and Sebastopol.

He was discharged from the Hussars in 1863, after serving 12 years, but re-enlisted into the 2nd Battalion of the 12th Foot Regiment in 1867 and was appointed master tailor at the rank of sergeant in September 1868.

He was discharged at his own request 22 years later and came to live in Salisbury, where he is thought to have lived in Martin's Terrace.

He died in April 1900 and was buried in London Road Cemetery, where his plot is marked with a memorial wooden cross.

His only surviving daughter was called Florence, after the famous nurse.

Until her death in 1961, she received a pension from a fund set up by Queen Victoria for dependants of survivors of the charge, and was believed to be the last person to be in receipt of this pension.

Terry Brighton, of the Queen's Royal Lancers Museum, who will be returning this weekend to the site of the charge with the Duke of Edinburgh and the current Lord Cardigan, said: "Those who survived their ride into the 'valley of death' were welcomed back as heroes, and it was said that a Light Brigade medal and a good story of the charge was worth a free quart of ale in any hostelry in England.

"I'm sure that applied in Salisbury."