Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part II)

Crimea 1854-56, 4 clasps, Alma, Balaklava, Inkermann, Sebastopol (Pte. Jn. Hewitt, 2nd Bn. R. Bde.), contemporary engraved naming, edge bruising and light contact marks, otherwise very fine £500-600

John Hewitt is mentioned for his gallant exploits in Sir William Cape’s History of the Rifle Brigade:

‘On the morning of Sunday, November 5, an hour before daybreak, the alarm was sounded in the English camp ... General Codrington, the first to give the alarm, turned out the Light Division and the 2nd Battalion assembled at once. Three companies only were on parade, one wing having gone to the heights of Balaklava and Captain Foreman’s company being in the five-gun battery. Of these three companies, one had just come in after being twenty-seven hours in the trenches. However, they at once advanced and General Codrington having placed his brigade on the Victoria ridge, these Riflemen extended along the left bank of the Careenage ravine on the extreme left of the line. Soon after they took up their position, a column of Russians, part of Solomonoff’s force, advanced up the Careenage ravine and after opening fire on the Riflemen, attempted to ascend its left bank; but Captain Elrington, with two companies of the 2nd Battalion, at once attacked them and drove them down at the point of the bayonet; they retreated by the bottom of the ravine and did not again make their appearance in that part of the fight. In this attack a Rifleman named Hewitt put on a greatcoat and cap, late property of a Russian soldier deceased, followed the retreating Muscovites down the ravine and picked off a number of them. He narrowly escaped however being shot by his own comrades. This man, as well as his brother in the same battalion, afterwards died in the Crimea.’

In point of fact, John Hewitt survived the War, although he is recorded on the musters as being sick at Scutari in the first half of 1855. His brother, William, however, did not, being among those killed in action on 29 October 1854 (see Lot 371 for his officially impressed Medal).

The ‘Balaklava’ clasp is a rarity to the 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade, a little under 50 of its officers, N.C.Os and men having won entitlement.