Joseph Ford

Joseph Ford is a fictional character in Sharpe's Waterloo by Bernard Cornwell.Joseph Ford is not a military man, but a wealthy landowner who purchased the post of colonel and thus the regiment, Prince of Wales Own Volunteers which he commanded at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. It is not clear when he did this but it is certainly after Sharpe's Regiment and before Sharpe's Waterloo. He is not the most confident of men mainly down to the lack of experienced men and officers, he also holds a preoccupation with keeping his spectacles clean. His senior officers are Major Micklethwaite and Major Vine. Micklethwaite is a rather silent character who dies at Quatre Bras and Vine is half deaf and seems to agree with all Ford says.

At Quatre Bras Ford is a victim of the Prince of Orange's foolishness and the timely intervention of Richard Sharpe. At Waterloo, during the attack of the French Old Guard, Major Vine is killed splattering Ford's glasses with Vine's brains. It is then that newly appointed Major d'Alembord and Sharpe take control and give the regiment another accolade of starting the rout of the Old Guard. Meanwhile Ford is trying to clean the brains of his glasses.Ford extremely depressed returns to Brussels to recover, whilst Sharpe takes temporary command.Ford is thus the last wartime commander of the South Essex/Prince Of Wales Own Volunteers. He does not, as depicted in the TV series, die at Waterloo.