Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Peninsula War medal awarded to Sergeant George Kinch, 14th Light Dragoons, who was wounded in the arm at Oporto and present in every engagement fought by the regiment in the Peninsula and in North America; he was afterwards appointed a Yeoman Warder at H.M. Tower of London, where he also held the privileged position of Bell Ringer and Clock Keeper

Military General Service 1793-1814, 11 clasps, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes D’Onor, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, Toulouse (G. Kinch, Serjeant, 14th Light Dragoons.) some very minor edge bruises, otherwise good very fine £6,000-£8,000

One officer and 17 other ranks of the 14th Light Dragoons received the maximum 11 clasps earned by the regiment, all with this same combination.

Sold with the following original documents, comprising a rare archive of parchment and paper documents:
i. Parchment Certificate of Discharge, dated 14 March 1832.
ii. Royal Hospital, Chelsea, Out-Pensioner’s document, dated 14 March 1832; some folds and tears professionally restored.
iii. Parchment document appointing George Kinch a Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London, dated 14 March 1832, and counter-signed ‘Wellington’ in his capacity as Constable of His Majesty’s Tower of London.
iv. Document appointing George Kinch ‘one of the Yeomen extraordinary of His Majesty’s Guard of His Body’, dated 6 May 1836.
v. Parchment document appointing George Kinch to be Bell Ringer and Clock Keeper at the Tower of London, dated 23 December 1837, an appointment that came with extra pay and privileges.
vi. Parchment document granting George Kinch a House on The Parade at the Tower of London, dated 5 December 1843.
vii. Two late Victorian small studio photographs of the M.G.S. medal by Johnston & Co., Stoke Newington, London.

George Kinch was born at Havant, Hampshire, and attested for the 14th Light Dragoons at Alresford, Hampshire, on 24 April 1805, aged 18, a butcher by trade. He was promoted to Corporal on 23 February 1809, but was reduced to Private again five months later on 24 July. He served ‘Five and a half years in the Peninsula; seven months in America, the remainder at home; Wounded in the left arm at Oporto, was present in the several Skirmishes and General Engagements with the Regiment in the Peninsula, from May 1809, until the Battle of Toulouse 1814.’ He served subsequently in North America and after his return to the United Kingdom he regained his promotion to Corporal on 25 September 1815, being further promoted to Sergeant on 1 October 1824. He was discharged at Gloucester on 14 March 1832, after 26 years and 327 days with the Colours.

Kinch was fortunate to have been appointed a Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London upon his discharge from the 14th Light Dragoons in March 1832. The Yeoman Warders were resident in quarters at the Tower as distinct from the Yeomen of the Guard who resided in their homes around the country, being called out for special ceremonial occasions. In the Census of 1841, he was living at No. 8, The Parade with his Irish-born wife, two sons and a daughter. In October 1841, during the ‘Great Awful Conflagration’ which consumed the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London, he was one of the Warders who helped rescue the Crown Jewels and other treasures, when he carried two salts with tops out of the Martin Tower and re-entered the building and carried out two spurs and bracelets and one salt cellar with cover. Records at the Chapel of St Peter-ad-Vincula show that one son and five daughters were christened there, three of the little girls dying there between 1834 and 1837. Kinch died in Stone Kitchen Tower (Byward Tower) on 20 February 1850, and is buried with his family in Tower Hamlets Cemetery.