Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, 4 Novr 1805 (John Burns.) very fine £1,000-£1,400

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The James Fox Collection of Naval Awards.

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Collection

J. B. Hayward, August 1973; Lee Bishop Collection, Spink, July 2009.

John Burns was born in Rothbury, Northumberland, and joined the Royal Navy in 1805. Borne on the ship’s books of H.M.S. Caesar as an Able Seaman from June 1805, he served in the Caesar during ‘Strachan’s Action’ on 4 November 1805, when she suffered 4 men killed and 25 wounded; later service including in the Indiaman Bombay Castle and in H.M.S. Caledonia. On being ‘paid off’ from the latter, and after three weeks ashore, he was told to report to H.M.S. Prince Frederick; however, he never returned for service and on 28 September 1814 he was logged as a deserter. Ironically this fact was seemingly missed or not noted by the Clerk processing Burns’ application for his Naval General Service Medal many years later.

Note: One other man of this name appears on the Admiralty Claimants’ List with his entitlement given as Lissa. However, the medal with clasp Lissa awarded to the other John Burns was sold in these rooms in September 2019 and high-resolution photographs of both medals are available to view on our website, thus securing for all time the two medals’ uniqueness and saving them from the devaluing effect of ‘a name in common usage’.