Orders, Decorations and Medals

Military General Service 1793-1814, 6 clasps, Busaco, Albuhera, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nive, Toulouse (A. Masters, Serjt. 57th Foot) light scratch to obverse, otherwise good very fine £800-1000

Alexander Masters was born at Damersham, Kent, and enlisted into the 57th Foot at Ashford on 2 February 1804, aged 21 years. By 1807 he had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant and served in that rank throughout the regiment’s service in the Peninsula. He was present at the sanguinary action of Albuhera where the regiment suffered very heavy casualties and gained their famous nickname of ‘The Diehards’. Masters was discharged at Valenciennes, France, on 18 May 1818, in consequence of ‘Chronic hepatitis occasioned by exposure during the Peninsular campaigns’. After his discharge he settled at Canterbury with a pension of 5d per day, later raised to 9d, and died there on 8 May 1852.