Orders, Decorations and Medals

Matthew Boulton’s Medal for Trafalgar 1805, white metal, fitted within a silver frame with loop suspension, lunettes lacking, the edge inscribed in contemporary running script ‘Frederick White Midshipman His Majestys Ship Africa 64 Guns’, medal with usual corrosion, therefore good fine £800-1000

The N.G.S. to this recipient, with Trafalgar clasp, was sold at Glendining’s in March 1985.

Frederick White was born in Norwich in 1792, and entered the Navy as a Volunteer First-Class in September 1805, on board the Africa 64, Captain Henry Digby, under whom he served at the battle of Trafalgar, where he was wounded. The fractured thigh he sustained in this historic action procured him a grant of £40 from the Patriotic Fund and he was promoted to Midshipman. He served in the Orestes 16 in Lord Gambier’s expedition to Copenhagen in 1807; and in the Cossack 24 assisting patriots on the north coast of Spain in 1808, and embarking troops after Corunna in 1809. Promoted to Lieutenant in February 1812, he subsequently served in the Rinaldo 10, escorting the Allied Sovereigns to England in 1814. He was afterwards a Stipendiary Magistrate in Jamaica, 1833-35; served in the Coast Guard, 1837-41; and as an Admiralty Agent, 1841-43. He became a Commander in 1846, was granted a Greenwich Hospital pension in 1852, and died in 1859.