Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Military General Service 1793-1814, 5 clasps, Vimiera, Talavera, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Orthes (Saml. Mathras, 6th Foot.) edge bruises and nicks, otherwise very fine £1400-1800

Provenance: Donald Hall, 1976.

Samuel Mathras was born at Salford, Manchester, and attested for the 6th Foot on 24 December 1806. Posted to the 1st Battalion, he served with them in Gibraltar and Portugal, and was present at the Battle of Vimiera, 21 August 1808, before being left sick at Almeida in November of that year. Drafted into the 2nd Battalion of Detachments in February 1909 he was present at Oporto and the Battle of Talavera, 27-28 July 1809, where the Battalion suffered 21 casualties.
Returning from Portugal in November 1809 he remained in the United Kingdom until proceeding once more to the Peninsula in November 1812 and joining the 7th Division. He was present at the Battle of Vittoria, 21 June 1813; at the Battles of Maya and Echalar in the Pyrenees, 25 July and 2 August 1813; and at the Battle of Orthes, 27 February 1814, where he was ‘slightly wounded in left knee by a spent ball, also on the head by a spent ball’.

Proceeding with the Regiment to Canada, he was present at the action at Fort Erie in September 1814, before being discharged in Canada on 24 February 1815.

Mathras appeared before the Board of Invalids on 9 December 1856, and was one of six men ‘recommended for special pensions on account of wounds received in action’. He was granted a pension of 9d per diem, to commence from 11 November 1856, and died on 16 April 1860.

Sold with copied Examination papers and other research.