Pair: Stoker Charles Parker, Royal Navy

South Africa 1834-53 (C. Parker. Stoker.); India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Pegu (Chas. Parker. Stoker. “Hermes”) contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine or better (2) £500-£550

Charles Parker was born on 13 June 1828, in Woolwich, Kent. Coming from Woolwich there was a strong association with the sea and his father, brother and later his son were all serving in the Navy as shipwrights. For some reason, Charles didn’t follow in those footsteps and instead became a Stoker and after being discharged, a Blacksmith.

He first went to sea in January 1850 but his service was short in that he was discharged after serving less than 5 years, almost all of it aboard H.M.S. Hermes under Commander E. G. Fishbourne and in which he earned the above two medals. Medals awarded to Hermes for each campaign amounted to 133 and 159 respectively. The South Africa roll indicates that when the medal was delivered to him in 1856 he could not write and made is mark with an X.

Of Commander Fishbourne, O’Byrne states: “Sailing in the vessel for Cape of Good Hope, he united in the hostilities of 1851 against the Kaffirs, and rendered services to the value of which the strongest testimony was borne in the dispatches to the Governor, Lieut,-Gen. Sir Harry Smith. He then sailed for the East Indies where he gained fresh laurels by his conduct during the Burmese War. Arriving off the Rangoon river 2 April 1852, with three of the Hon. East India Company’s steamers and four transports, Hermes, having on board the Lieut.-General commanding the Forces, proceeded the next day to Moulmein, and on the 5th assisted at the capture of Martaban, although she grounded too far off to be of much use. From the 11th until the 14th she was engaged in the operations against Rangoon, and had six men wounded. On the morning of the 12th, Capt. Fishbourne went on shore and superintended the landing of the troops….on the following April, Hermes, with Her Majesty’s Plenipotentiary, Sir George Bonham, on board, ascended the Yang-tse-kiang as far as Nankin, for the purpose of assuring the rebels of the neutrality of the British nation. On the 27th while she was off the city, the Tartars sent towards her a fire raft, which she fortunately avoided by getting under-way. On the passage down the river, she found it necessary, 3 May, to shell the heights in front of Chin-Kiang-Foo, which were crowned with stockades. Towards the close of June, being at Shanghae, she sent her boats, under Lieut. Spratt and Mr. Williams, Mate, up the same river, the Yang-tse-kiang, for the purpose of seeking out deserters from H.M.S. Salamander. They courageously advanced as far as Chin-Kiang, but failed to discover the missing men. Captain Fishbourne continued in Hermes until, after 4 years and 5 months (during which period he had run 75,000 miles, and consumed 7,000 tons of coal), he was paid off at Woolwich, 10 June 1854”.