Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Captain B. L. Lefroy, Royal Navy, Commander of the Spiteful during the Abyssinian operations in 1867

Baltic 1854-55 (Lieut., R.N.) contemporary engraved naming; Abyssinia 1867 (Comr., H.M.S. Spiteful) contained in a hand-carved gilt wooden frame embellished with crowned anchors, monogram ‘BLL’, and the dates ‘1854 1868’, all within ropework borders, the reverse of the frame with carved initials and date ‘TEL 1908’, good very fine £600-700

Benjamin Langlois Lefroy was born in 1830, and entered the Royal Navy as a Sub-Lieutenant in July 1851. He became Lieutenant in May 1854, and Commander in March 1863. He commanded the Investigator during the Niger expedition in the attempt to communicate with Dr Baikie, the naval surgeon and explorer, in August 1862. He next commanded the Spiteful whilst engaged on various services during the Abyssinian expedition in 1867.

Piracy in the Arabian Gulf received a check at the hands of Commander Lefroy in Spiteful, who, during a month’s cruise in the early part of 1868, captured and destroyed six vessels, and rescued 200 slaves. Two of the slavers taken were armed with 6-pr carronades. On one occasion determined resistance was offered; and on another the fugitive crew of a captured dhow returned, and made a bold but vain effort to regain the prize, which had to be blown up.

Lefroy retired as a Captain in October 1873 and died sometime in 1898. His son, Tracy Edward Lefroy, who apparently carved the frame which house his father’s medals, was killed in action as a Major on 5 December 1917, whilst second-in-command of the 8th Royal Warwicks.