Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Military General Service 1793-1814, 1 clasp, Talavera (Henry Watkins, 23rd. Light Dragoons.) minor edge bruising, good very fine £1,200-£1,600

Provenance: Glendining’s, May 1958.

Henry Watkins was born in the Parish of St George’s, London, and was taken prisoner of war at Talavera (WO 97/140 refers but copy not present). The Royal Hospital, Chelsea, Admissions Book records that he was admitted to an out-pension on 31 March 1815, having ‘Disabled right shoulder and wounded body by a musket shot at Talavera.’ He was then aged 36 years, had served 16 years 5 months, and was granted a pension of 9d per diem.

Napier records ‘Sir Arthur ordered Anson’s brigade of cavalry, composed of the 23rd Light Dragoons and the First German Hussars, to charge the head of these columns [Villarte’s Division, some grenadiers and two regiments of light cavalry]. They went off at a canter, increasing their speed as they advanced and riding headlong against the enemy; but in a few moments, a hollow cleft which was not perceptible at a distance intervened, and at the same moment the French, throwing themselves into squares, opened their fire. Colonel Arentschild, commanding the hussars, an officer whom forty years’ experience had made a master in his art, promptly reined up at the brink, exclaiming in his broken phrase, ‘I vill not kill my young mans!’ The 23rd found the chasm more practicable, the English blood is hot, and the regiment plunged down without a check, men and horses rolling over each other in dreadful confusion; yet the survivors, untamed, mounted the opposite bank by twos and threes’ ... and ‘fell with inexpressible violence upon a brigade of French chasseurs in the rear. The combat was fierce, yet short, for Victor seeing the advance of the English, had detached his Polish lancers and Westphalia light horse to support Villatte, and these freshmen coming up when the 23rd, already overmatched, could scarcely hold up against the chasseurs, entirely broke them.’ In consequence of losing about half its strength in this action, 102 killed and 105 taken prisoner, the 23rd Light Dragoons were withdrawn to England to recruit and never returned to the Peninsula as a regiment during the remaining years of the war.