Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The rare Naval General Service Medal for Navarino awarded to Able Seaman J. Birt, an impressed ex-Smuggler

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Navarino (James Birt) minor edge nicks otherwise nearly extremely fine and rare to a confirmed Smuggler £2200-2600

Provenance: Spink, February 1951; Dix Noonan Webb, February 1998.

James Birt was born in Bexhill and was an impressed ex-Smuggler who, having completed his five years’ penal sentence in foreign waters, opted to remain in the Royal Navy and served as an Able Seaman in H.M.S. Asia at the battle of Navarino, in which the combined fleets of Britain, France and Russia engaged and routed the Turkish fleet on 20 October 1827. The morning after the battle Admiral Sir Edward Codrington described the state of the Turkish fleet as such, ‘Out of a fleet composed of eighty-one-men-of-war, only one frigate and fifteen smaller vessels are in a state to ever put to sea again.’

One of only 7 Naval General Service Medals with clasp Navarino awarded to impressed ex-Smugglers (Naval Medal 1793-1856 by K. J. Douglas-Morris refers).