Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An interesting Naval General Service Medal pair awarded to Admiral H. Boys, Royal Navy, who was wounded as a young Midshipman at the bombardment of St. Jean D’Acre in 1840: he was latterly President of the Gardner Gun Company

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Syria (Midshipman); St. Jean d’Acre 1840, silver, privately engraved naming, ‘Henry Boys, H.M.S. Edinburgh’, this last with swivel-ring suspension and slide-on riband buckle, contact marks and edge bruising, otherwise generally about very fine, together with a rare second, enlarged edition of his father’s memoir, Narrative of a Captivity and Adventures in France and Flanders Between the Years 1803 and 1809, published 1831, this with later cloth bound spine (3) £800-1000

Henry Boys was born in 1824, a grandson of John Boys of Botshanger, Kent and the son of Captain Edward Boys, R.N., one of a handful of Naval officers who escaped from captivity in the Napoleonic Wars, and whose published account of his daring exploits first appeared in print 1827.

Young Henry entered the Royal Navy as a 1st Class Volunteer in August 1837 and joined H.M.S. Edinburgh as a recently appointed Midshipman in 1839. He was subsequently actively employed in the Syria operations of 1840, winning applause for his overall conduct and in particular for his deeds at the capture of Beyrout, where he was entrusted with the duty of removing the powder from the castle. He was afterwards wounded during the bombardment of St. Jean D’Acre on 3 November 1840.

Advanced to Lieutenant in February 1846, Boys participated in several boat actions against river pirates and slavers on or off the west coast of Africa during a tour of duty aboard the Centaur in 1849-50, and was present at the capture of the slaver Esperance in August of the latter year and of the Feliz that October, actions that were rewarded with a share of the resultant prize money. He subsequently served off the south-east coast of America as a Flag Lieutenant to Rear-Admiral W. W. Henderson, C.B., K.H., and in May 1853, as a recently advanced Commander, was appointed captain of the brig Express.

Returning to the U.K. in 1857, in which year he was advanced to Captain, Boys did not obtain another seagoing appointment until 1863, when he assumed command of the Pelorous for a commission off China. Thereafter he held a succession of senior appointments ashore, the first of them as C.O. of the gunnery establishment Excellent - and as Captain Superintendent of the Royal Naval College - from 1869 until 1874. Advanced to flag rank in the following year, he served as Director of Naval Ordnance from 1875-78 and latterly as 2nd-in-Command of Channel Squadron. His final appointment was as a Member of the Committee of Naval Ordnance and he was placed on the Retired List as a full Admiral in July 1885. But Boys retained strong links with his seafaring past, serving as a Governor of the Marine Society, in addition to onetime acting as President of the Gardner Gun Company. He died in 1902.