Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 3 clasps, Martinique, 1 & 18 Sep Boat Service 1812, 6 Jan Boat Service 1813 (Theos. Furneaux.) good very fine £8000-10000

Provenance: Phillips Collection 1925, Dalrymple White Collection 1946, and Elson Collection 1963.

Confirmed on the roll as Captain of the Maintop aboard Eurydice at Martinique, and as Able Seaman aboard the Bacchante for the boat service actions of 1 & 18 September 1812 (approximately 21 clasps issued) and 6 January 1813 (approximately 26 clasps issued).

On 1 September 1812, a party of 65 officers and men in five boats from Bacchante, under the command of First Lieutenant Donat Henchy O’Brien, cut out and captured two French gunboats, the xebec Tisiphone and seven vessels of a convoy in Port Lemo, Istria, in the Adriatic. The second date on this clasp does not appear on the official list and some authorities state it to be an official error not relating to the award at all. However, as will be seen from the following extract from The Royal Navy by W. Laird Clowes, it was obviously an error in the original Gazette notice that was clearly corrected prior to the issue of the double-dated clasp:

‘On September 18th [1812], having chased a convoy in the passage between Vasto and the island of Tremiti, off the coast of Apulia, Captain William Hoste, of the Bacchante 38, despatched his six boats, under Lieutenants Donat Henchy O’Brien and Silas Thomson Hood, to follow up the enemy, the wind having failed the frigate. The convoy, of eighteen merchantmen, anchored and hauled aground, having outside of it eight armed vessels, carrying among them eight long guns, six swivels, and 104 men. The attacking party numbered only 72, but it rowed in with such determination, and boarded with such dash, that the enemy fled incontinently, leaving the entire convoy to the victors.’ Both of the distinguished actions of 1st and 18th September are reported in the London Gazette of 1813, pp 163-4. Lieutenant O’Brien was promoted to Commander, 22 January 1813, for this and previous actions.

At dawn on 6 January 1813, when H.M. ships Bacchante and Weazle were lying becalmed to the south-east of Cape Otranto, five French gunboats were observed, three in the south-west making for Otranto and two heading south-east. The Weazle was directed to attend to the smaller division and Lieutenant Donat Henchy O’Brien to the larger one in Bacchante’s barge. At 8.00 am, after a long pull, Lieutenant O’Brien overtook and captured the sternmost gunboat of two guns. This was left in the hands of Midshipman Thomas Hoste, who, after securing the prisoners, worked the bow-gun of the prize against her late friends. Lieutenant O’Brien pushed on and captured the two other gunboats making towards Calabria. The Weazle, unable to catch up with the smaller division, sent in two boats under the orders of Lieutenant Thomas Wholey and, together with another boat from the Bacchante, under the orders of Master’s Mate Edward Webb, boarded and carried the two gunboats successively, each after a determined resistance.

Theodore (alias Theophilus) Furneaux was born at Newton Abbott, Devonshire, and first entered the Navy as a volunteer on 22 October 1803, mustered aboard H.M.S. Eurydice as a Landsman, aged 21 years. At the time of the capture of Martinique he was still aboard Eurydice as Captain of the Maintop. He joined the Bacchante on 2 December 1811, as an Able Seaman but now using his alias first name of Theophilus, and served in this ship until July 1815. He subsequently served in the Rochfort, Albion and Royal Sovereign until 1 May 1827, when he was promoted to Boatswain and reverted to his original name of Theodore. The final entry for his records is shown as 21 November 1843.