Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Military General Service Medal awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Mullen, K.H., 1st Foot, who served with the 1st Battalion in the West Indies and with the 3rd Battalion in the Peninsula; in the bloody and unsuccessful first assault of St Sebastian on 25 July 1813, command of the 3rd Battalion devolved on him, all his seniors having been killed or severely wounded

Military General Service 1793-1814, 2 clasps, Guadaloupe, Vittoria (Robt. Mullen, Lieut. 1st Foot) with silver ribbon brooch and contained in contemporary fitted case, toned, extremely fine £2,400-£2,800

7 clasps for Guadaloupe to the 1st Foot, this being the only officer recipient and probably unique to the British army in combination with a Peninsula clasp.

Robert Mullen was enlisted into the 1st Regiment of Foot, then stationed in Ireland, on 24 April 1786, aged not quite 13 having been born in Dublin in May 1773. Appointed Drummer on 1 April 1788, and Private on 19 January 1790, the regiment was stationed at Spanish Town in March 1790 and subsequently at Fort Augusta and Up-Park, Jamaica, and later at Port-au-Prince. Appointed Drummer once more in February 1792, he reverted to Private in June 1792 and was promoted to Corporal in December 1793, and to Sergeant in August 1795. By April 1798 the regiment was stationed at Stirling Castle, having last been mustered at Port-au-Prince in January 1797, and in January 1799 was stationed in Ireland.

On 24 July 1800, Mullen was appointed Sergeant-Major and, on 2 August 1801, he was appointed Adjutant without purchase. On 25 June 1802 he was commissioned Ensign and Adjutant, again without purchase. Although Mullen left no written record of his service in the ranks, it is possible to assume that he did see active service in the West Indies, particularly in the operations against the French on the Island of St Domingo in 1794 and the capture of Port-au-Prince. Fortunately his commissioned service is more fully documented, particularly in his statement of service, written in 1829 which states:

‘Was present at the capture of St Martin and St Thomas in 1801, and of Demerera, Esquibo and Berbice in September 1803; attack and capture of Guadaloupe in Feby. 1810, on which occasion although a Captain and holding the Staff Appointment of Town Major of St Ann’s Barbados, and command of the detachments of the Army in that country he volunteered to proceed as a Subaltern with a company of the 1st Battalion, which formed a part of the 1st Light Infantry Battn upon that expedition, and resigned his Staff appointment for that purpose. Present at the affair of the Pass of Osma in Spain on the 18th, and at the Battle of Vittoria 21st June 1813; Siege of St Sebastian, and in the assault 25th July 1813, when the command of the 3rd Battalion devolved on him, all his seniors having been killed or severely wounded. The loss sustained by the 3rd Battalion in this assault was 16 officers out of 21, and upwards of 300 non-commissioned officers and privates killed and wounded.’

Relieved, on 24 August 1813, of his active role in the 3rd Battalion, Mullen took up duties on the Staff but continued with the 3rd Battalion until redeployed back to the 1st Battalion on 26 September 1814, in Canada. His duties seem to have been in Corps Headquarters in Quebec as a Staff Officer until he was recalled to England in July 1815, after which he served with the Army of Occupation in the Netherlands and France until January 1817. In February 1820 he returned to the West Indies where he served until the Battalion embarked for the U.K. in December 1835. He had been promoted to Major in the 1st Foot on 8 August 1833, and in 1835 was appointed a Knight of Hanover by King William IV. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, without purchase, on 16 June 1843. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Mullen, K.H., died on 7 July 1851, at the residence of his son, Captain Mullen, the Governor of the Glasgow prisons.

Sold with Lieutenant-Colonel Mullen’s own leather-bound copy of Cannon’s Regimental History of the First Foot, 1837, with inscription ‘from a sincere friend, Dublin July 1839’, and with page annotations in his own hand, together with his hand-written statement of service and two letters from the Hanoverian Legation in London, one dated 7th January 1852, concerning the return of the ‘Badge of a Guelphic Knight, formerly worn by your late lamented father Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Mullen’, the second dated 10th March 1852, acknowledging receipt of the Badge.

For the medals awarded to Lieutenant E. C. Mullen, see Lot 84.