Auction Catalogue

21 September 2001

Starting at 12:00 PM

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Orders, Decorations and Medals

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Lot

№ 27

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21 September 2001

Hammer Price:
£700

Military General Service 1793-1814, 9 clasps, Egypt, Corunna, Busaco, Fuentes D’Onor, Salamanca, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Toulouse (William Stewart, 79th Foot) repairs to carriage and rivets and the Busaco clasp a copy, edge bruising and contact wear, therefore nearly very fine £900-1200

58 Egypt clasps to the 79th and only five medals with 9 clasps, the maximum entitlement to the regiment.

William Stewart was also present at Waterloo where he was severely wounded in the thigh on the 18th June 1815. His papers show that he was born at Kincardine, near Downe, Perthshire, and that he enlisted into the 79th Foot, at the age of 26, on 26 April 1805. This is clearly too late for him to have been in Egypt with the 79th but his discharge papers also refer to service ‘in other Corps, after the age of Eighteen’. However, no further clues are given and it is always possible that these papers refer to a different man.

The Busaco clasp is a copy