Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Royal Cork City Militia Merit Medal 1799, 41mm, gold, unmarked, the obverse featuring a central crowned harp with the number of the regiment, ‘27’, at its base, ‘Royal Cork City Militia’ on scroll riband above, and ‘Lieut. Colonel Mountiford Longfield Comding.’ below; the reverse engraved, ‘The Gift of Colonel Lord Longueville to Captain Lieut. John Corker, For Merit, 26 June 1799’, test mark to edge at 8 o’clock, very fine £400-500

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, June 2006.

Richard Longfield was created Lord Longueville in 1795. He was an Irish Peer and advanced to Viscount in the Peerage of Ireland. The title died with Lord Longueville in 1811. Longueville demesne consisted of 666 acres and included Longueville House.

Mountiford Longfield was MP for Enniscorthy and a cousin of Richard Longfield, Lord Longueville, and with another cousin, John Longfield, MP for Mallow, inherited the estates of Castle Mary, Co. Cork, from Lord Longueville on his death.

John Corker was promoted Captain in the Royal Cork City Militia on 30 May 1800 and Major on 19 February 1808. It is probable that he was awarded the Merit Medal for services during the 1798 Irish Rebellion, for the engagement on 29th May 1878 at Rathangan, Co. Kildare, ‘where a body of rebels was ejected from the village, 50-60 rebels killed and numerous prisoners released by a party under Lt. Col. Longfield’ (An epitomised History of the Militia (‘The Constitutional Force’), by Col. G. J. Hay, refers).
Subsequent to the Rebellion, John Corker became a Freeman of the City of Cork. He died on 6 September 1853, aged 81. The Corker family are thought to have originated from Cheshire/Lancashire, and from William IV’s accession were prominent in Dublin and later land owners in County Cork, with their former residence at Ballymaloe Castle and family tomb in Cloyne Cathedral. One of the family, James Corker, lived at Cor Castle, which was burned down in June 1921 during the Irish War of Independence.

A list of Protestants who raised local militia and volunteer corps in 1778 in support of the King includes John Corker, Arch Deacon Corker and Rev. Chambre (Chambers) Corker. The History of the County and City of Cork, Rev. C. B. Gibson refers.

This merit medal is recorded by Hastings Irwin and is noted in Grove White’s Journal as having been the ‘property of William Henning Corker, of Rushbrooke’, in 1899.