Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Colonel Ambrose Wolrige, Royal Marines, who served with the Marine Brigade in the Crimea and commanded the Royal Marines at the engagement with the forts at Kagosima during the operations in Japan in 1864

Baltic 1854-55, lightly named in rather crude but contemporary engraved capitals; Crimea 1854-56, 3 clasps, Balaklava, Inkermann, Sebastopol (Ambrose Wolrige, Lieut. R.M.) contemporary engraved naming; Order of the Medjidie, 5th class breast badge, silver and enamels, the reverse inscribed ‘Lieut. A. Wolrige, Rl. Marines’; Turkish Crimea, Sardinian issue, named as the first; Al Valore Militare, Spedizione D’Oriente 1855-1856 (First Lt. Ambrose Wolrige, R.M.) all medals fitted with contemporary replacement bar suspension and all but the first with silver ribbon buckles, contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine and rare (5) £2000-2500

Al Valore Militare: ‘Served with the Marine Brigade during the whole of the operations in the Crimea, attached to the Light Division. Favourably mentioned in the despatches for his constant zealous conduct in the Trenches.’ One of only twenty awards to the Royal Marines for service in the Crimea.

Ambrose Wolrige was born on 1 January 1832, son of Colonel Ambrose A. R. Wolrige, R.M.L.I. (N.G.S., 4 clasps). He entered the Royal Marines as 2nd Lieutenant on 19 December 1848, becoming 1st Lieutenant in November 1852; Lieutenant and Quartermaster, 4th Division, November 1855; Captain, April 1860; Brevet Major, November 1863; Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, December 1873, and retired on full pay with honorary rank of Colonel on 20 January 1875.

He served in the Baltic in August and September 1854 (Medal); the Eastern Campaign of 1854 with the R.M. Brigade, including the battle of Balaklava, and was with the Light Division of the Army at the battle of Inkermann, and in the trenches during the whole winter; present with the combined Force before Sebastopol during the siege, and at its fall in 1855; served as Adjutant to the R.M. Battalion on the Kertch expedition and occupation of Yenikalé, and also at the surrender of Kinburn (Medal with three clasps, Sardinian Medal, 5th Class of the Medjidie, and Turkish Medal).

He commanded the Royal Marines in the engagement with the forts at Kagosima in Japan on the 15th August, 1864 (Brevet of Major); was present at the bombardment of the batteries at the Straits of Simono-seki, the entrance of the inland Sea of Japan, and as Major of Brigade at the capture and destruction of the batteries, magazines, and barracks, and during the shore operations, from the 5th to the 8th September, 1864 (mentioned in despatches). Whilst no campaign medals were given for these operations in Japan, there were three awards of the Victoria Cross to members of the Royal Navy. Colonel Wolrige died at Hastings in 1899, aged 67 years.