Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Waterloo 1815 (Lieut. J. E. Irving, 13th Reg. Light Dragoons.) fitted with original steel clip and ring suspension, considerable wear and contact marks, therefore fine £3000-4000

Sold with privately published history of the Irving family, James Irving of Ironshore and his Descendants 1713-1918, by Sir Æmilius Irving, Knight Bachelor, King’s Counsel, Canada, &c., &c., College Press, Toronto, 1918, copy No. 93 of 100.

Jacob Æmilius Irving was born at Charleston, South Carolina, on 29 January 1797, eldest son of the first Jacob Æmilius Irving, descended from the Irvings of Bonshaw Tower, Dumfriesshire. The name Æmilius came into the family by the marriage of William Irving to Æmilia, daughter of Andrew, 3rd Baron Rollo of Duncrub in 1698. Their eighth son, James Irving, went out in the world to seek his fortune, first to Russia, then to Bermuda, afterwards to South Carolina and eventually to Jamaica where he acquired large estates.

Jacob Æmilius removed from Charleston in 1800, together with his parents and younger brother, to Ironshore, on the island of Jamaica. Here, the young boy was attacked by severe fever and was sent with his mother and brothers aboard the Augustus Cæsar, a merchant vessel bound for London as part of a large fleet under convoy of several men-of-war. They encountered a dreadful tempest in the Bay of Biscay in which very many vessels perished, one being the Calypso frigate forming part of the convoy. Eventually, however, they reached London in safety. The climate of England did not agree with Jacob Æmilius so the family duly returned to Charleston, South Carolina. In June 1810 the family sailed from Charleston for England, arriving at Liverpool on 6 July, with the intention of not only educating the children in English habits, ‘as the tone of American bringing up was not approved’, but also to settle permanently in England or Scotland.

Jacob Æmilius was gazetted a Cornet in the 13th Light Dragoons on 14 March 1814, his father returning to Jamaica two months later. He became a Lieutenant on 18 May 1815, and was present with his regiment at the battle of Waterloo, where he was wounded by a sabre cut on the head in one of the last charges. On the general reduction of the Army after the Peace, he was placed on half-pay, 26 July 1816; on 3 October of the same year, he was gazetted a Lieutenant in his old regiment. His father died in November 1816 and Jacob Æmilius succeeded to the estates and property in Jamaica. After the funeral he returned to his regiment and was finally placed on half-pay again on 5 November 1818.

In 1821 Jacob Æmilius went to live at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and in December of that year was married in Paris, to Catherine, daughter of Sir Jere Homfray. They emigrated to Canada in 1834 and settled on a farm near Lundy’s Lane. In 1837-38 he helped to suppress the rebellion in Upper Canada, serving on the Niagara frontier. He was elected onto the Legislative Council of Upper Canada from 1843 until his death, and also became the First Warden of the Simcoe District, Niagara in the same year. Jacob Æmilius Irving died at his mother’s residence in Culp Street, Drummondville, Upper Canada, on 7 October 1856.