Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Gunner Dominick Linihan, Bombay Artillery, later 12th Foot and wounded in New Zealand

Punjab 1848-49, 2 clasps, Mooltan, Goojerat (Gunner Dominick Linahan, 2nd Compy. 1st Bn. Arty.); Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Central India (Gunner Domk. Linihan, 2nd Tp. Bombay Arty.); New Zealand 1845-66, reverse undated (695 D Linehan 1st Battn. 12th Foot) light contact marks, otherwise very fine or better (3) £1000-1200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the Bombay Artillery.

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Provenance: Bought Baldwin 1957.

Dominick Linihan (note variations in name) was born in 1828, a native of Tralee, County Kerry. A Tailor by trade, he enlisted at Bristol on 13 February 1847, for unlimited service, aged 18 years 5 months. He embarked for India on 19 March in the Gilmore and arrived there on 19 July 1847. Posted to the Bombay European Regiment of Fusiliers, he transferred to 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, Bombay Artillery on 29 September 1847, seeing service in the Punjab campaign of 1848-49. He was promoted to Corporal in March 1852 and transferred to the Ordnance Department, Bombay, in 1853, shown on the Town Major’s Non-Effective List. He is shown as Store and Park Corporal in 1856 and as Acting Store and Park Sergeant in 1857. He transferred to 4th Company, 2nd Battalion, Bombay Artillery as Gunner on 7 July 1857, probably as a result of a Court Martial, and to 1st Company, 2nd Battalion, Bombay Artillery by 31 March 1858. His claim to the Indian Mutiny medal is shown under 2 Troop, Horse Artillery, as being present at the capture of Awah and entitled to the medal without clasp. He was discharged ‘free’ on 14 October 1859.

Linihan next joined the 1st Battalion, 12th Foot at Sydney, Australia, for a bounty of £2, and was taken on the strength of the detachment serving in New Zealand on 16 July. He served in the Taranaki campaign of 1860 and was wounded in action at Matirikorika on 29 December, being invalided to Sydney on 6 May 1861. He joined the strength of the Battalion on 7 May but remained in hospital until 20 May. Examined by a Medical Board at Sydney on 10 August, he was invalided on 13 August 1861, and was discharged at Chatham on 31 December 1861, in consequence of having been ‘wounded in the back, the ball lodging in right scapula, on the 29th December 1860 in action at Matirikorika, New Zealand, which has caused so much loss of motion and power of right arm as to render him unfit for the duties of a soldier.’

Sold with copied discharge papers.