John Francis Edward Acton was born in Besancon in June 1736, the son of Edward Acton, a physician. He served under his uncle in the Tuscan Navy and commanded the Tuscan frigates present at the Spanish-led invasion of Algiers in 1775, on which occasion he distinguished himself, bringing his ships inshore to save the Spanish disembarkation from a feigned retreat and trap set by the Algerines. Henry Swinburne later wrote that the Spanish would have been ‘broken and slaughtered to a man ... had not Mr. Acton, the Tuscan commander, cut his cables, and let his ships drive in to shore just as the enemy was coming on us full gallop. The incessant fire of his great guns, loaded with grape-shot, not only stopped them in their career, but obliged them to retire with great loss.’

In 1779, as a result of his glowing naval career, Queen Maria Carolina of Naples asked her brother, the Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany, to invite Acton to undertake the reorganisation of the Neapolitan Navy, a task competed with characteristic flair and success. Indeed Acton’s career flourished thereafter, his appointments including Minister of Marine and War in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1779-1789), Minister of Commerce (1786-1789) and Prime Minister (1789-1806); so, too, according to rumour, his love life, an alleged affair with King Ferdinand’s Queen Maria Carolina causing a scandal.

But beyond such rumours Acton was giving the Spanish genuine cause for concern - namely his policy to substitute their influence at Naples for British and Austrian interests, a plan supported by Sir William Hamilton, the English ambassador. Such then the threat and success of Acton’s grip on the region that King Ferdinand felt bound to appoint him to the Order of St. Januarius, by royal warrant dated 23 December 1785. But with the passage of time, and the mounting costs of re-armament, he became as unpopular as the King and Queen, and in fact joined them as they fled the resultant revolution in 1798. And subsequent to the eventual defeat of the revolutionaries, in May 1800, the King appointed Acton as one of the original Knights of the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Ferdinand, citing the ‘Fidelity you have constantly demonstrated, particularly in the recent disgraceful events in the Kingdom of Naples’ (letter dated 14 May 1800).

During the Neapolitan Revolution, the Tsar of Russia, Paul I, sent troops in support of King Ferdinand and, in 1800, while the King was at Palermo, he also sent Count Levaschoff to the Two Sicilies to mediate between the government and France. And among papers held by the Acton family is an Italian inventory of Sir John’s Orders of Knighthood, headed Ordini, in which is listed a ‘Letter of the Emperor of Russia of 25 September 1800, delivered to the King by the Count Levaschoff, with Orders of Russia for the Knight Acton’, namely the Orders of St. Andrew, St. Alexander-Nevsky and St. Anne.

Yet further honours were to follow, for in 1801-2 Acton played a major role in negotiating with Spain a double royal marriage, namely the unions of the Hereditary Crown Prince of the Two Sicilies to a Spanish infanta, and his sister, Princess Marie Antoinette, to the Prince of the Asturias - the Crown Prince of Spain, thereby adding further salt to the wounds of the French ambassador, who noted sourly that his Spanish counterpart ‘was already at Chevalier Acton’s feet ... Spain overwhelms him with eulogies and caresses, and Charles IV has just bestowed on him the Order of the Golden Fleece’. The relevant royal warrant was dated 3 May 1802.

Back in office as Prime Minister, Acton remained in power until February 1806, when the French arrived in Naples and he had to flee with the Royal Family to Sicily. He died at Palermo in August 1811.

In 1791, on the death of his second cousin once removed, Sir Richard Acton of Aldenham Hall, Shropshire, he succeeded to the title and estates, while in January 1799, by papal dispensation, he married Mary Anne, the eldest daughter of his brother, General Joseph Edward Acton (1737-1830), also of the Neapolitan service.

Italian States, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Royal Order of St. Januarius, an excessively rare 18th Century sash badge, 57 x 56mm., gold and enamel, unmarked, lacking fleur de lis in two of the angles, suspension repaired and refitted, enamel damage to the centres and the white border, good fine £2000-2500

Awarded the Royal Order of St. Januarius by Royal Warrant dated 23 December 1785.