Orders, Decorations and Medals

Waterloo 1815 (Capt. & Bre. Maj. A. Kuckuck, 3rd Line Batt.) fitted with original steel clip and small ring suspension, together with a fine oval miniature portrait of the recipient in uniform wearing his Waterloo medal, oils on ivory, unsigned; a gilt badge with GRV cypher from his later Hannoverian service; ‘Peacock’s Polite Repository or Pocket Companion’ for 1818, with hand written eulogy to the K.G.L. with reference to their services at Waterloo given by the Duke of Cambridge, bound in red leather; a wax seal impression, and a group photograph of officers in the Hannoverian service, the reverse inscription identifying ‘Grandfather Kuckuck-Wahren’, nearly extremely fine £4000-5000

Johann Augustin Julius Kuckuck was born in the Kingdom of Hannover in about 1767. He was married at Einbeck on 18 August 1788, and subsequently had five children. He joined the newly formed King’s German Legion on 15 September 1804, being appointed as Captain of a Company to the 3rd Line Battalion, and served in the expedition to Hannover in 1805-06. In 1807 he took part in the expedition to the Baltic, and from 1808 to 1814 he was stationed on the island of Sicily in the Mediterranean. Promoted to Brevet Major in the 3rd Line Battalion in June 1814, he was stationed in the Netherlands during the latter part of that year, and took part in the campaign of 1815 and the battle of Waterloo. He was promoted to substantive Major in the 5th Line Battalion in September 1815 and placed on half-pay on 25 April 1816, upon the reduction of the King’s German Legion. For his services at Waterloo he was awarded the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle, 4th Class, and the Hannoverian Wilhelm’s Cross. He was later promoted to Colonel on the half pay by brevet and became Commandant at Hildesheim. Sold with copy statement of service in which he points out that of his three Christian names only August, contracted from Augustin, had ever been inserted in his Commissions, and that he would continue to do the same until further orders; dated Hildesheim, 22 December 1828.