Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Navarino (Thos. Hurdle, 2nd Lieut. R.M.) edge bruise to reverse rim and light contact marks, otherwise very fine £2500-3000

Major-General Sir Thomas Hurdle, K.C.B., Colonel Commandant, Royal Marines, was at the attack on the forts and harbour of Courageaux in 1815; and at the battle of Navarino in 1827, where he served aboard H.M.S. Albion (medal with clasp). He served during the revolutionary war in Greece in 1828, and received the Cross of the Redeemer of Greece; was present in the engagement at Punta Obligado in the river Parana on the 20th November 1845, where he commanded a landing party of Royal Marines that stormed and carried with the bayonet the last of the Argentine batteries that had continued to fire. For these services he received the Brevet rank of Major. In 1854-55, he commanded the Brigade of Royal Marines serving with the army in the Crimea, including the battle of Balaklava, siege and fall of Sebastopol; and commanded the 2nd Brigade of the Army at the surrender of Kinburn (medal with two clasps, C.B., Aide-de-Camp to the Queen, Officer of the Legion of Honour, Sardinian and Turkish Medals, and 3rd Class of the Medjidie). Hurdle was appointed Colonel Commandant in February 1857, and Major-General in December 1859. He was appointed K.C.B. in June 1877 and died sometime in 1888.

The citation for Hurdle’s Al Valore Militare states ‘Colonel Thomas Hurdle, C.B. - Commanded the Marine Brigade during the whole period it was disembarked in the Crimea, including the repulse of the Russians before Balaklava, when the Batteries, served by the Marines, did good service. Favourably mentioned in despatches.’ The K.C.B. star and Crimean awards to this officer were sold at Glendining’s in April 1977.