 On 20 June 1820 Wells was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Chepstow Troop of the Yeomanry Cavalry of Gloucestershire and Monmouth.This makes Wells the second black person to be commissioned into the Armed Forces of the Crown, and no more black officers are known to have been commissioned until almost one hundred years later.Yeomanry commissions were signed by the Lord Lieutenant of the County, not by the King, as were regular army commissions, and those in the later Special Reserve as held by Tull.