Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Crimea 1854-56, 2 clasps, Balaklava, Inkermann (Private John Cook Grenr. Guards) contemporarily engraved naming, tops lugs removed, polished, nearly very fine £160-200

John Cook was born in Colchester, Essex, in 1831, and attested for the Grenadier Guards at Colchester on 23 November 1849. He served with the Regiment in the Crimea, ‘and was present at the Battle of Inkermann and in the trenches before Sebastopol, was wounded at the Battle of Inkermann.’ He was discharged on 8 May 1855, on account of a gunshot wound received at Inkermann, 5 November 1854, and was subsequently admitted as an in-patient of the the Royal Hospital, Chelsea on 1 May 1902. He died there on 20 October 1903.

Note: Although Private Cook’s Service Papers state that he was entitled to the Crimea Medal with clasps Inkermann and Sebastopol, the medal appears entirely as issued. It is more than likely that the recipient‘s medal was swapped with that of another man prior to being named, and that Cook never realised the mistake; in common with many soldiers of his generation, he gave his mark rather than signing his name, and it is unlikely that he could read or write.