Pair: Private Thomas Lees, Royal Marines
Crimea 1854-56, 3 clasps, Sebastopol, Balaklava, Inkermann (Thomas Lees 48 Compy. R.M. of H.M.S. Algirs sic) contemporary engraved naming, clasps mounted in order as listed; Turkish Crimea, British issue, unnamed, the medals contained in a small fitted display case, edge bruising and contact marks, otherwise very fine (2) £500-600

Sold with an original portrait photograph of the recipient wearing his medals; and a lengthy newspaper article, pasted down in a later Passport, entitled A Dudley Crimean Veteran, from The Advertiser, Saturday, October 5, 1895, which describes in some detail Thomas Lees’ experiences in the Crimea, of which the following are short extracts:

‘Mr Thomas Lees , boot and shoemaker, of the Market Place, Dudley, is one of the last men whom one would suspect of having taken part in such a strenuous business as the Crimean War. But it is even so. He had experience of the terrible winter of 1854-5 in the trenches before Sebastopol, and suffered terribly... Mr Lees belongs to a family that seems to have had considerable experience of military life. His grandfather fought at Waterloo and survived the carnage of that terrible day; one of his brothers was at the taking of Canton in the second Chinese War in 1857; and another brother served his time in the marines, but never saw any fighting.’

‘The boom of the great siege guns and the answering thunder from the beleaguered fortress came thick and fast through the air, and announced to our recruits the stern work which was going on on shore. The Algiers was ordered to Balaclava harbour, and a corps of marines numbering about 200 was directed to land and occupy a position on the heights above the harbour. On the 25th the Algiers got into the harbour. The roll of musketry and the boom of field guns told to those on board ship that a battle was going forward on the shore, and as the stately vessel crept into the harbour there was much high-wrought excitement, and the men on the look out from the mast head were straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of the deadly game. It was the battle of Balaclava that was being fought - the awful tragedy known as the charge of the Light Brigade was even then being enacted.’

“We had raw salted pork and biscuits and green coffee berries. Just fancy what the administration of the commissariat was which gave us green coffee berries which had to be roasted and ground before we could make a little coffee! But that was not all. We had no fuel to make fires wherewithal to roast or cook. Our pork we had to eat raw. My dinner on Christmas day, 1854, was raw salted pork and biscuit. It was simply horrible.”

‘Under this regime men were dying on every side. As the year grew older the cold became more intense, and cases of frost bite of more and more frequent occurrence. The feet and toes were mostly attacked. There were plenty of shoes at Balaclava; but red tape and want of transport prevented their being sent to the front, and the toes and feet and even the legs of poor fellows in the trenches, in a very literal sense, rotted off. Early in January, 1855, Mr Lees’ feet were attacked; but he continued to fulfil his round of duty in the trenches. It is one of the peculiarities of frost bite that when once it has fastened on any of the extremities of the human body no pain is felt, and hence it is possible for a man to go on for a time unaware of the terrible risk he is running in making no complaint to the surgeon. At last he was ordered to the hospital tent. The first night of his sojourn there a man on either side of him died, one of them in his delirium calling for his mother.’

‘Mr Lees was affected in the toes of both feet, and as soon as possible he was sent down, with others, to the hospital shop at Balaclava for transmission to the Naval Hospital, at Therapia, about fifteen miles from Constantinople. He was mounted on a mule, and in the course of his journey one of his toes dropped off. He speaks in the highest terms of the skill and attention bestowed upon the sufferers at Therapia. As the patients recovered they were sent home by easy stages, to England. On arriving at Woolwich most of the invalids were able to walk to their quarters. He, however, could only hobble along in great pain. A young man - a marine - who stood on the steps saw him, took him on his back, and carried him into the building. This young man he met many years after in the person of Police constable Harvey, who was so well-known and respected in Dudley. In a short time Mr Lees received his discharge, and left the army minus the whole of the toes of both feet - a cripple for life; and a grateful country bestowed upon him the munificent pension of six pence halfpenny a day. He came in, of course, for a medal when these were distributed as memorials of the campaign and he was also the recipient of a similar token from the Turkish Government.’