Auction Catalogue

19–21 June 2013

Starting at 10:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

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Lot

№ 608

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19 June 2013

Hammer Price:
£6,000

Pair: Private Richard Hughes, 1st Foot (Royal Scots), who was taken prisoner at the storming of St Sebastian and severely wounded at the battle of Waterloo

Military General Service 1793-1814, 2 clasps, Vittoria, St. Sebastian (R. Hughes, 1st Foot, Royals.); Waterloo 1815 (Richard Hughes, 3rd Batt. 1st Foot or R. Scots.) fitted with contemporary replacement clip and bar suspension, edge bruising and contact marks, therefore good fine (2) £4000-5000

First sold at Sotheby’s in 1881, and more recently in the collections of Professor Leyland Robinson and Francis Ridsdale, the latter largely disposed of by Spink in the 1970s.

Richard Hughes was born in the Parish of Palmerston, Dublin, and enlisted into the 1st Foot on 2 July 1811. He served in the Peninsula, including the battle of Vittoria and siege of St Sebastian, at which latter place he was taken prisoner. The muster rolls confirm his absence as a prisoner in the period 25 July to 24 September 1813. He served at Waterloo in Captain Robert Dudgeon’s Company No 8 and was severely wounded in the battle. He served 6 years 238 days, including two years for Waterloo, and was discharged on 24 February 1816, in consequence of ‘a wound in the thigh received at Waterloo on the 18th day of June 1815.’

The 3rd Battalion, Royal Scots, suffered very heavy casualties of 362 officers and men at Quatre Bras and Waterloo; in fact no regiment suffered higher casualties amongst its officers, as a percentage, than the Royal Scots, in killed and wounded. Similarly, at St Sebastian, the casualty figure of 451 officers and men, killed or wounded, was the highest recorded for any regiment at that action.

Hughes was discharged to an Out-pension at Chelsea Hospital on 20 March 1816, and admitted to an In-pension at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin, on 1 July 1854. He died there on 10 December 1877, and lies buried in the Private Soldiers Burial Ground. Sold with copied discharge papers, muster list and other research.