Auction Catalogue

29 March 2000

Starting at 12:00 PM

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Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Regus Conference Centre  12 St James Square  London  SW1Y 4RB

Lot

№ 221

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29 March 2000

Hammer Price:
£310

Charge of the Light Brigade, a good manuscript letter from Captain The Hon. G. C. Morgan, 17th Lancers, to the Earl of Lucan, Commanding Cavalry Division in the Crimea, dated Balaklava, 7th December 1854, requesting leave of absence to return to England to attend to his personal affairs, with handwritten annotations by the Earl of Lucan forwarding Morgan’s request to the Adjutant General at Headquarters (December 10th), and the Adjutant General’s refusal of the application on the 11th December, good condition £150-250

Captain The Hon. Godfrey Charles Morgan, later Viscount Tredegar, commanded a squadron of the 17th Lancers in the charge of the Light Brigade. Despite the refusal of his application for leave recorded above, he was eventually granted leave of absence to proceed to Scutari on the 30th December, 1854, and thence to England, where he retired by the sale of his commission on 10th January, 1855. He served as Major in the Royal Gloucestershire Yeomanry 1856-75, and became Hon. Colonel, The Monmouthshire Engineers Militia in 1885. In the Cardigan v. Calthorpe lawsuit, an affidavit of Morgan’s was filed on 2nd June 1863, in which he stated that he remembered Captain Morris suggesting that Lord Cardigan should attack the retreating Russian cavalry, after the charge of the Heavy Brigade. He attended the first Balaklava Banquet in October 1875, and the Officers Dinners in 1892 and 1893. He became Viscount Tredegar in 1905, and died at Tredegar House, Newport, on 11 March 1913.