Auction Catalogue

27 June 2007

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations and Medals

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

Lot

№ 12

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27 June 2007

Hammer Price:
£620

Four: Private J. Kennedy, 31st Foot

Crimea 1854-56, 1 clasp, Sebastopol (No.2977 John Kannedy, 31 Regt.), privately impressed naming, some letters/numbers overstruck, note different number and spelling of surname; China 1857-60, 2 clasps, Taku Forts 1860, Pekin 1860 (John Kennedy, 31st Regt.), officially impressed naming; Army L.S. & G.C., V.R., 3rd issue (2997 John Kennedy, 31st Foot); Turkish Crimea 1855, Sardinian issue (2977 John Kennedy, 31 Regt.), privately impressed naming, with claw and swivel ring suspension, edge bruising, contact marks, nearly very fine (4) £380-420

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Brigadier Brian Parritt, C.B.E..

View Medals from the Collection of Brigadier Brian Parritt, C.B.E.

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Collection

John Kennedy was born in the Parish of Newport in Co. Tipperary. A Labourer by occupation, he attested for the 31st Regiment at Nenagh on 20 April 1847, aged 20 years. With the regiment he served firstly in Corfu and the Ionian Islands and then saw action before the walls of Sebastopol in the Crimea. Service in the Cape of Good Hope and India was followed soon after by action in the Second China War. Kennedy of the 31st Foot was one of several picked men from each battalion who were posted as orderlies to a ‘Coolie Corps’ of some 750 men from Hong Kong that was formed to provide logistic support and labour during the campaign. The Corps did stirling work - at the battle for the Taku Forts, when a pontoon bridge collapsed, members of the corps had rushed into the water and held the bridge up with their own bodies so that British troops could cross. The 31st Foot as a regiment did not qualify for the clasp ‘Pekin 1860’, Kennedy as a member of the Coolie Corps did - one of 51 men of the regiment to do so. He was discharged on 18 June 1866 due to Chronic Bronchitis ‘aggrevated by service’. Sold with copied discharge papers and copied extract from the China Medal roll which confirms his service with the Coolie Corps.