Three: Lieutenant Colonel T. B. Fanshawe, 33rd (The Duke of Wellington’s) Regiment of Foot, who gave a remarkable eyewitness account of the ‘frightful’ annihilation of British forces at the Storming of the Grand Redan on 18 June 1855

Crimea 1854-56, 1 clasp, Sebastopol (I B. Fanshawe. Captn. 33rd. Regt. 1855) contemporarily engraved naming; Abyssinia 1867 (Major T. B. Fanshawe 3rd. D.W. Regt.); Turkish Crimea 1855, British issue (J. B. Fanshawe. Captn. 33rd. Regt. 1855.) contemporarily engraved naming, fitted with loop and small ring suspension, contact marks and wear to naming of first, good fine and better (3) £500-£700

Thomas Basil Fanshawe was born in Dagenham, Essex, on 3 December 1829. Appointed to a commission in the 33rd Regiment of Foot on 14 April 1846, he served in the Crimea from June 1855 and was present at the Siege of Sebastopol and the Assault on the Redan. Going in at first light on 18 June 1855, the attack proved a disaster. Fully alerted by the ineffectual artillery overture, and heartened by their repulse of the French, the Russians were ready to do likewise with the British, their storm of grapeshot and musketry devastating the men struggling up the slope to the glacis, broken by shell-holes, trenches and old gravel-pits. Within minutes the formed platoons and companies disintegrated into scattered, disordered parties, easily shot down.

Fanshawe later described these events in a letter home to his parents - believed to be the only firsthand account of the Regiment’s sufferings that morning:

‘We had to cross, on leaving the trenches, 150 yards of open ground, exposed to a very heavy fire of grape-shot from the enemy. Our loss, I regret to say, was very considerable, having had 50 men killed and wounded. Lieut-Colonel Johnstone has lost his left arm, Mundy is hit in the leg with a bullet, Bennett I am sorry to say is killed; Quayle shot in the elbow and arm. Wickham is so hit in the foot that he is likely to be disabled for some time to come... I have had a bruise on the shoulder which has made it stiff... The loss our Division has sustained is frightful. The Rifle Brigade (2nd Brigade) are almost annihilated! Out of 130 men, 35 only survive. The 23rd nearly cease to exist!...’

Fanshawe remarkably survived the Crimean War and went on to serve as second in command of a wing of the regiment with the Okamundel Field Force at the Siege of Dwarka in 1859. Raised Major in April 1865, he was present at the storming and capture of Magdala in April 1868, before being appointed Lieutenant Colonel in September 1873 and retired to pension on 2 March 1878.

Sold with copied Army Service Record and extracts from The History of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment where Fanshawe receives a number of mentions.