Auction Catalogue

3 December 2020

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Live Online Auction

Download Images

Lot

№ 215

.

3 December 2020

Hammer Price:
£4,400

The Peninsula War Medal awarded to Private William Fell, 52nd Light Infantry, a ‘volunteer’ at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, who was severely wounded at Badajoz, and dangerously wounded at Orthes

Military General Service 1793-1814, 6 clasps, Busaco, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Orthes (William Fell, 52nd Foot.) with silver ribbon brooch lightly engraved ‘Peninsular’, edge bruising and polished, otherwise good fine and better £2,000-£3,000

Provenance: Glendining’s, April 1956; Lusted, October 1976.

William Fell was born at Cartmel, Lancashire, and enlisted into the 52nd Foot, from the Royal Cheshire Militia, on 4 April 1809. He served in the Peninsula with the 1/52nd from 1809-14, being present at Pombal, Almeida, Sabugal, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo (storming party), Badajoz (severely wounded), Salamanca, Vittoria and Orthes (severely wounded). He also served with the 2/52nd in the Netherlands in 1815, but was not at Waterloo, and transferred back to the 1/52nd in July 1815 to serve in France with the Army of Occupation until 1818. He was discharged in August 1821 and returned to Cumbria to his former trade of papermaker. He later worked in a cotton factory where one of his duties was being the armed messenger to collect the wages each week for the factory. He died in June 1852 and is buried in St Anne’s Churchyard, Haverthwaite, Cumbria, where the inscription on his headstone reads:

REQUIESCAT IN PACE.
WILLIAM FELL
A SOLDIER OF THE 52ND LIGHT INFANTRY
WHO FOUGHT IN THAT GALLANT REGIMENT, AT
POMBAL
ALMEIDA
ON THE PLAINS OF CONDILLA
AT SABUGAL
BUSACO
FUENTES D’ONOR
AT THE SIEGE AND STORMING OF
CIUDAD RODRIGO
(A VOLUNTEER)
BADAJOZ
(SEVERELY WOUNDED)
SALAMANCA
VITTORIA
AND
ORTHES
(DANGEROUSLY WOUNDED)
WAS BORN AT BROW EDGE AND BURIED
HERE ON THE 27TH JUNE 1852
IN HAVERTHWAITE CHURCH YARD.

B. G. TO WHOM HE LEFT HIS MEDAL
OF SIX CLASPS DEDICATES TO
BRITISH VALOUR THIS HUMBLE STONE.

Reference:
Wellington’s Men Remembered, Janet & David Bromley; and Janet D. Martin, A Furness soldier in the Peninsular War, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeologocal Society Transactions, 2004, pp. 221-8.