Orders, Decorations and Medals

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Trafalgar (Geo. Cocksedge, Midshipman) very fine £6000-8000

George Cocksedge served as a Midshipman aboard the Polyphemus at the battle of Trafalgar. A third-rate she fought in the Lee column at Trafalgar, losing six killed and wounded.

She engaged the French 84, Neptune, and the Achille 74, only quitting the latter when she saw a Union Jack being waved from the French ship’s starboard cathead. After the battle, and during the gale that followed, she performed good service in regaining possession of the Spanish 80, Argonauta, which she delivered over to Lord Collingwood at Cadiz. She afterwards took in tow the Victory, with the body of Nelson on board, and conducted her to the mouth of the Straits of Gibraltar.

George Edward Cocksedge was born in Suffolk and entered the Navy on 14 November 1798, as First Class Volunteer, on board the Impetueux 78, Captain Sampson Edwards, in which ship, and the St George 98, commanded by the same officer, he served, on the Channel and Mediterranean stations until February 1801. During the next four years he successively joined, as Midshipman, the San Joseph 110, bearing the flag of Lord Nelson, Lapwing 28, Captain Edward Rotheram, and Plantagenet 74, Captains Graham Eden Hamond and Hon. Michael De Courcy; and while in the latter vessel, besides convoying a fleet of Indiamen to St Helena, assisted in capturing, 27 July 1803, L’Atalante corvette of 22 guns. On subsequently removing to the Polyphemus 64, Captain Robert Redmill, flag-ship afterwards of Rear-Admiral George Murray, he further bore a part in the battle fought of Cape Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, and witnessed in July 1807, the unsuccessful attack made on Buenos Ayres by Lieutenant-General Whitelock. Between 1809, in which year he obtained a commission and 1813, he next served in the West Indies, North America, and German Ocean, nearly the whole time as First Lieutenant, on board the Shark sloop, Dispatch 18, Franchise 36, Gorgon ‘armée en flute’, Calliope 20, and Cretan brig. Lieutenant Cocksedge was placed on half-pay in 1813 and onto the Reserved List in 1851. He received the Naval Medal with one Clasp and died in 1860.