Military General Service 1793-1814, 7 clasps, Busaco, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, St. Sebastian, Orthes, Toulouse (Frans. Kelly, 27th Foot) Nearly very fine.

The 27th was regiment of three battalions. The 1st and 2nd landed in eastern Spain in December 1812 and did not serve under Wellington. The 3rd had landed at Corunna in October 1808 but stayed behind in Portugal while the main army under Sir John Moore endured the Corunna campaign. An outbreak of fever kept the 3/27th away from the field of Talavera. At Busaco it was hardly engaged and only a detachment was present at Albuera. However the storm of Badajoz took a terrible toll and 303 casualties were sustained. During the battles of the Pyrenees in July 1813, principally at Souauren on the 28th, a further 300 men were lost. The battalion was afterwards at Nivelle, Orthes and Toulouse.

On August 31st 1813 a detachment of volunteers, including Kelley took part in the assult of San Sebastion where casualties were again very high. Kelley received a severe head wound and was one of only three survivors of his storming party. (Only 28 St. Sebastian clasps issued to the regiment)
At the end of the war, in 1814, the 3/27th was sent to North America where Kelly remained at Drummondsville, East Canada. He died December 31st 1848.

Sold with extensive photocopied paperwork including a letter from Lord Dalhousie campaigning for a pension for this brave soldier.

Military General Service 1793-1814, 6 clasps, Albuhera, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Toulouse (Thos. Munn, 57th Foot) suspension claw tightened and neat repair to carriage on one side between first two clasps, otherwise nearly very fine.

During the early part of the war in the Peninsula, the regiment, which contained a number of turbulent characters in its ranks, received the nickname of the ‘Steelbacks’, from the amount of flogging administered to these men and the way they bore the punishment; but after Albuhera, Colonel Inglis’ words to his ‘fighting villains’ caused this soubriquet to be replaced by the honourable one of ‘Die Hards.’ At this bloodiest of battles the 57th had 2 officers and 87 men killed and 21 officers and 318 men wounded.
The regiment sustained a further 28 casualties at Vittoria, 75 in the Pyrennes, 64 at Nivelle and 127 at Nive.

Sold with extensive photocopied paperwork confirming entitlement.

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Algiers (J. L. Clayton, Midshipman) original ribbon, minor marks, otherwise, good very fine.

John Lloyd Clayton was born in August 1796, the third son of Sir William Clayton, Bt., of Harleyford, Buckinghamshire.

Entering the Royal Navy as a First Class Volunteer aboard H.M.S. Poictiers in April 1810, he served on the Home and American Stations until removing to the Tonnant in early 1814, in which period he was appointed Midshipman.

Other brief appointments having followed, including service in the yacht Royal Sovereign under Captain Sir J. P. Beresford on the occasion that Louis XVIII was conveyed to Calais, Clayton joined the Ajax on the Mediterranean Station in February 1815.

Removing thence to the Queen Charlotte, flagship of Lord Exmouth, he was present at the battle of Algiers on 27 August 1816, and ‘received, on the quarter-deck, the thanks of his chief for his gallantry in sinking a burning vessel which had been rapidly approaching the flagship’.

Shortly thereafter returning to appointments in royal yachts, Clayton served under Captain Sir Edward Owen in the Royal Sovereign, in which vessel he escorted the Queen Dowager, the Dukes and Duchesses of Kent, Cumberland, Cambridge and Hesse Homburg, and the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, and afterwards in the Royal George under Captain Hon. Charles Paget, and was promoted to Lieutenant in November 1818.

This appears to have been his final seagoing appointment, and in later life he presided as a Magistrate in Middlesex and for the liberties of Westminster. Clayton, who married Louisa Sophia in April 1832, died at his residence in Portman Square, London in October 1855, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Sold with a fine pair of portrait miniatures of Lieutenant Clayton and his wife, Louisa Sophia, 10cm. by 12cm., in larger matching wooden frames with gilt corner decoration; together with his Royal Naval Officer’s sword, 1827 pattern, the 76cm. pipe-backed blade lightly etched with crowned fouled anchor, etc., regulation half-basket guard, lion’s head pommel, fish-skin covered grip bound with copper wire, complete with black leather scabbard with three mounts, blade rust damaged and mounts worn overall.

Hyderabad 1843 (R: White Act: Gr. E:I:C:Sr. Meteor) officially impressed naming, fitted with original German silver bar suspension, good very fine and rare.
Ex Whalley 1877, Payne 1910, and Ritchie 2005.

Only 50 medals with the Hyderabad reverse issued to European recipients aboard the Meteor (16), Comet (17) and Nimrod (17). However, twenty-one of these medals were not claimed by the recipients and were subsequently returned to the India Office. According to a note on the medal roll, White’s medal, together with examples for the Meteor and Nimrod, was “Given to Mr Stewart Mackenzie [a well-known collector of medals] in exchange for a new medal by permission of Lord G. Hamilton 24.4.77”. The remaining eighteen returned medals were in all probability melted down, leaving as few as 32 medals issued.

Richard White, a Londoner, is recorded in the List of European Seamen in the Indian Navy Establishment up to 31 December 1842 as being 34 years of age and belonging to the H.C.V. Meteor. He arrived from England in the Lady East in 1840, and received the Hon. Company’s Bounty on 18 February of that year. He signed on for five years service, but died at Sakhen on 20 September 1843.

Ref: IOL L/MAR/C/745; Medals awarded to the Indian Navy for the Sind Campaign 1843 (Bullock).

The Zulu War Medal awarded to Lance-Sergeant John Key, 2/24th Foot, who served with “B” company at the historic defence of the Rorke’s Drift Mission Station.
South Africe 1877-79, 1 Clasp 1877-8-9 (2389 Lce. Sergt. J. Key. 2-24th Foot), edge bruise otherwise good very fine.

John Key attested at Secunderbad, India, on 28 August 1871, and was posted to the 2nd Battalion, 24th Foot. Appointed a Drummer in 1873, he reverted to Private in September 1877 and was appointed a Lance-Corporal in May 1878. He was promoted Corporal in July 1878 and appointed Lance-Sergeant on 19 February 1879.
He thus served as a Corporal in “B” Company at the epic defence of the mission station at Rorke’s Drift on 22nd/23rd January 1879. He was promoted to Sergeant in March 1880 and placed on the unattached list at Secunderbad on 1 March 1884.

A South Africa Medal 1877-79 awarded to Private J. Maynard, 94th Foot, who was killed in action at Bronkhorst Spruit, 20 December 1880

South Africa 1877-79, 1 clasp, 1879 (1827 Pte. J. Maynard, 94th Foot) good very fine.

1827 Private Joseph Maynard, 94th Foot, was killed in action at Bronkhorst Spruit, 20 December 1880, during the First Boer War, 1880-81. Sold with a copied account of the action and an extract from the published roll.

South Africa 1877-79, 1 clasp, 1877-8-9 (126 Corpl. N.Ball, 1/24th Foot) Small edge bruise otherwise good very fine.

Nicholas Ball was killed in action at Isandhlwana on 22 January 1879. He had enlisted at Liverpool, Lancashire, on 28 May 1874, aged 20 years. His "Effects claimed by his mother and Sisters" (The Noble 24th refers).

The Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion of Zululand in South Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of about 1,800 British, colonial and native troops and perhaps 400 civilians. The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears, iklwa and cow-hide shields, but also had a number of muskets and old rifles though they were not formally trained in their use. The British and colonial troops were armed with the state-of-the-art Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle and two 7 pounder artillery pieces as well as a rocket battery. Despite a vast disadvantage in weapons technology, the numerically superior Zulus ultimately overwhelmed the poorly led and badly deployed British, killing over 1,300 troops, including all those out on the forward firing line. The Zulu army suffered around a thousand killed.
The battle was a crushing victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion of Zululand. The British Army had suffered its worst defeat against a technologically inferior indigenous force. However, Isandlwana resulted in the British taking a much more aggressive approach in the Anglo-Zulu War, leading to a heavily reinforced second invasion and the destruction of King Cetshwayo's hopes of a negotiated peace.