Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Guadaloupe (W. H. Martin, Midshipman.) very minor edge bruise, otherwise extremely fine £1,800-£2,200

Provenance: Glendining’s, May 1963; Spink, July 2008.

Confirmed on the roll as a 14 year old Midshipman in H.M.S. Pultusk during the combined naval and military operations commanded by Vice Admiral the Honourable Sir Alexander Cochrane and Lieutenant General Sir George Beckwith which culminated in the capture of the French-held island of Guadaloupe, January-February 1810.

William Henry Martin was born in Marylebone, Middlesex on 21 September 1795, and was the son of Samuel and Grace Martin. He joined the Royal Navy as First Class Volunteer on 26 May 1809, and was posted for service in H.M.S. Antelope (Captain Donald McLeod), the latter bearing the flag of Admiral John Holloway at Newfoundland; in the following September Martin was appointed as Supernumerary Midshipman of the Pompee, the flag-ship of Vice Admiral the Honourable Sir Alexander Cochrane in the West Indies; his employment continued in the same station with the Pultusk and the Wellington; he served in the Papillon (Captain James Hay) on the Cadiz and Lisbon stations for the next four years and nine months; Martin was briefly borne on the books of the Namur, flagship of Sir Charles Rowley at the Nore, 1815, before serving with the Cadmus, Pique, Iphigenia and Sybille on the Home and Jamaica stations, May 1816-December 1820.

He was confirmed as Lieutenant (after having acted for a brief period as such in the Euryalus) on 6 March 1821. Further appointments included to the Albion and the Thetis; he left the latter after serving on her more than 4 years just a week before she was wrecked near Cape Frio, on 5 December 1830, with the loss of 28 men. He did however play a part in guarding the wreck and subsequent salvage operations while serving as Acting Commander on Algerine which was his final ship before he retired as a 35 year old on 5 August 1831.


On 4 December 1830, H.M.S. Thetis left Rio bound for England, having on board gold and silver worth £160,000. Six days later the Squadron received a dispatch stating the Thetis had been lost off Cape Frio. The Clio, Algerine and launch from the flagship were sent to locate the wreck, and found she was some 18O miles along the coast, breaking up on the rocks and exposed to the westerly gales. All but about 28 of her crew had got ashore and were subsequently rescued.

Algerine remained on station whilst the Clio returned to Rio where Captain Dickinson of the Lightning (later renamed Larne) planned a salvage scheme which involved the construction of diving bells out of two iron tanks from the Warspite and suspended first from a massive derrick and then from cables stretched across the cliff tops. Lightning under Captain Dickinson worked at the salvage until March 1832, when she returned home. Commander De Roos in Algerine then took over and completed the operation in July 1832. A total of £157,000 worth of precious metal was raised from the wreck from depths of between 40 and 70 feet, using the improvised resources available from the ships of the squadron.

Algerine returned to Chatham to pay off on 3 December 1833. The dispute over salvage awards carried on for many years; the total finally awarded was £54,800, the Admiralty deducting £13,800 for operational costs and the court £12,000 for expenses. Captain Dickinson was still contending in 1854, the year before his death, that the whole award, less costs, should have gone to the crews of the two ships, but to no avail.

Charles Darwin in the second volume of his narrative admits to his curiosity... "On the 3d of April, we passed Cape Frio. I wished to visit the cove in which the Lightning and Algerine lay, while recovering the treasure sunk in the unfortunate Thetis, but circumstances were unfavourable."

Lieutenant Martin was alive and living in Bristol when the 1861 census was completed. At the time he was living with his wife Julia who was 17 years his Junior. At the time of the 1871 Census, he and Julia are living with Julia's sister and niece at 12 Yonge Park in Islington. Henry Martin died in the 2nd quarter of 1872 aged 76 and Julia lived there until she passed away on 23 June 1887, aged 75.