Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Waterloo 1815 (George M’Guire, 2nd Battn. 30th Reg. Foot.) with original steel clip and split ring suspension, minor edge nicks, nearly extremely fine £1600-2000

George McGuire was born in Ballinasloe, County Galway, in May 1795. He attested for the 30th Foot in May 1812, and served with Captain J. Tongue’s company as part of the 2nd Battalion during the Waterloo campaign:

‘The website of the Lancashire Infantry Museum claims that at the end of the day of the Battle of Waterloo, the 30th had lost about half its numbers, while British Battles and Medals gives a total of 279 killed, wounded and missing from a strength of 615 - losses of 45%. There is no documentary evidence that George McGuire was one of the wounded.... McGuire was in Captain John Tongue’s company of four officers and 64 NCOs and men, and the roll notes three killed on 18 June and 15 wounded (two of whom died later), a casualty rate of ‘only’ 26%. Either Capt. Tongue’s company suffered a lower attrition rate than the others, or the roll does not record all the casualties, but the musters show that on 24 September 1815 George McGuire was in the regimental hospital, and that after the battalion returned to Ireland in October 1815 he was ‘left sick in France’ until October 1816. Thirteen months seems a long time to be ‘sick’, so perhaps he had suffered trauma - either physical or mental - during those tumultuous 72 hours at Quatre Bras and Waterloo in June 1815. It would not be surprising if he had.

After McGuire rejoined the 2/30th at Tralee on 13 October 1816, the next milestone in his army career occurred on 13 December when he was transferred to the 1st Battalion of the 30th Foot, then in India... He joined his new battalion at Fort St. George, Madras, on 10 July 1817, and was posted to Captain Samuel Fox’s company.

From then on, matters seem to have gone downhill quite rapidly for McGuire. The musters show him in hospital again when the musters were taken in August, September and November 1817, and in February 1818 he was ‘Invalided and sent to Europe. Subsisted to 24 May 1818’. His health had finally given out. The casualty return for the 1/30th for the period 25 January to 24 February 1818 shows him as ‘Invalid embarked on board the Honourable Company’s Ship “Rose” for England under charge of Lieutenant D. Anstice of the 53rd Regiment’; he was one of 40 invalids sent home on the Rose.’ (article written on the recipient and his medal by Peter Liversidge, as featured in the OMRS Journal refers)

McGuire, ‘survived the five-month journey - stops at Colombo, Table Bay and St. Helena - and was landed at Gravesend on 25 June 1818.... I found his name on the relevant muster for the East India Establishment’s Invalid and Consolidated Depots: George McGuire died at Chatham on 2 August 1818. He was 23 years old and had been in the Army for a little over six years, during which time he had travelled almost half way round the world and back, and stood in line being pounded by the French army at Waterloo. For that, he received the Waterloo Medal which bears his name impressed around the rim....’ (ibid)

Sold with copied research, including an article written on the recipient and his medal by Peter Liversidge, as featured in the OMRS Journal.