Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

William Bee, 3rd Foot, who was wounded in the right leg and taken prisoner at Talavera, and wounded in the left leg at Albuhera where the regiment suffered terribly

Military General Service 1793-1814, 6 clasps, Talavera, Albuhera, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Toulouse (Wm. Bee, 3rd Foot.) light contact marks, otherwise very fine £2000-2500

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

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Provenance: Liverpool Medals.

William Bee was born in the Town of Harbourn, Worcestershire, in about 1788. He enlisted into the 3rd Foot at Uxbridge, Middlesex, on 6 April 1807, for a period of 7 years, and was paid a bounty of 11 guineas on joining. He was discharged at Quebec, Canada, on 25 February 1815, where he appears to have taken up residence in Montreal, claiming his M.G.S. medal from there in 1848. After an examination by the Invalid Board he was admitted to a pension of 9d per diem on 12 May 1863. The Board’s report noted ‘William Bee, 3rd Foot, Peninsula’, then aged 76, served 7 years 10 months, discharged 1815, ‘a very good man. Wounded in both legs, the right at Talavera and the left at Albuera’.

The muster rolls indicate that he was one of the wounded men left behind and taken prisoner after Talavera, being shown as ‘POW’ until July 1810. He received his pension, increased to 1s per diem from 18 February 1868, from the Staff Officer of Pensions at Montreal, and seems to have died there in 1871. Sold with copied Examination papers and other research.