Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

William Masher, 23rd Light Dragoons

Military General Service 1793-1814, 2 clasps, Egypt, Talavera (William Masher, 23rd Light Dragoons.) edge bruising and contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine £1600-1800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Napoleonic War Medals.

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Provenance: Spink 1904 and 1907; Sotheby, November 1997.

16 medals issued to the 23rd Light Dragoons with these two clasps.

William Masher (Mesher on discharge papers) was born in the Parish of Christchurch, Hampshire, a Stonemason by trade. He enlisted into the 26th Light Dragoons in the year 1800, and in the following year saw service in Egypt, where the regiment was present at the battle of Alexandria on 21 March 1801. In the following year the regiment was renumbered, becoming the 23rd Light Dragoons.

He next served in the campaign in Spain in 1809 and was present at the battle of Talavera on 28 July, when the 23rd Light Dragoons made their famous and costly charge against three lines of cavalry.

Napier records ‘Sir Arthur ordered Anson’s brigade of cavalry, composed of the 23rd Light Dragoons and the First German Hussars, to charge the head of these columns [Villarte’s Division, some grenadiers and two regiments of light cavalry]. They went off at a canter, increasing their speed as they advanced and riding headlong against the enemy; but in a few moments, a hollow cleft which was not perceptible at a distance intervened, and at the same moment the French, throwing themselves into squares, opened their fire. Colonel Arentschild, commanding the hussars, an officer whom forty years’ experience had made a master in his art, promptly reined up at the brink, exclaiming in his broken phrase, ‘I vill not kill my young mans!’ The 23rd found the chasm more practicable, the English blood is hot, and the regiment plunged down without a check, men and horses rolling over each other in dreadful confusion; yet the survivors, untamed, mounted the opposite bank by twos and threes’ ... and ‘fell with inexpressible violence upon a brigade of French chasseurs in the rear. The combat was fierce, yet short, for Victor seeing the advance of the English, had detached his Polish lancers and Westphalia light horse to support Villatte, and these freshmen coming up when the 23rd, already overmatched, could scarcely hold up against the chasseurs, entirely broke them.’ In consequence of losing about half its strength in this action, 102 killed and 105 taken prisoner, the 23rd Light Dragoons were withdrawn to England to recruit and never returned to the Peninsula as a regiment during the remaining years of the war. Mesher was discharged at Deal Barracks on 11 June 1811, in consequence of his being lame of both feet. He afterwards served in the 11th Veteran Battalion, from which he was discharged in August 1814.

Sold with copied discharge papers.