Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Board of Trade, Foreign Office, Medal for Gallantry in Defence of the British Legation 1861, obv. head of Queen Victoria left, rev. within a crowned oak wreath, ‘Presented by the British Government’, with the circumscription, ‘For Gallantry in Defence of the British Legation. July 6th 1861’, 32mm., silver, unnamed, with ribbon, good very fine and rare £600-800

For centuries, foreigners had been rigorously excluded from Japan. This voluntary seclusion was finally breached by Commodore Matthew Perry, U.S.N. in 1853. With firm diplomacy a commecial treaty was agreed between Japan and the U.S.A. in March 1854, closely followed by a similar treaty agreed between Japan and Great Britain in October the same year. Such trade links with these and other foreign governments had many powerful opponents; many of the nobility and samurai class being violently opposed to any western influence. Foreigners were then often the subject of attack by disaffected Japanese - these often ‘Ronin’ - former Samurai who no longer owed allegiance to any feudal warlord.

On the night of 5/6 July 1861, an attack was made on the British Legation at Jeddo by a band of anti-foreigner fanatics - supposedly at the instigation of Prince Mito. Breaking into the temple where the Legation was quartered, they succeeded in wounding several of the staff quartered there. The Japanese Guards of the Legation, the Yacunins, fought bravely to defend it, and in recognition of their gallantry in protecting British life and property, the Foreign Office had a special medal struck to reward them. The medals were duly produced and sent to Japan but none were ever issued. There the matter ended, until on 15 June 1889 it was announced in The Times:

‘A Relic of Old Japan - A few months ago some interest was excited by the report that on opening a safe which had not been touched for many years in the British Legation in Tokyo, it was found to contain a number of medals intended by the British Government of the day for a number of Japanese who had taken part in the defence of the Legation against an attack made upon it by samurai one night in July 1861, when several members of Sir Rutherford Alcock’s staff, including the late Mr Laurence Oliphant, were wounded. ... Sir Rutherford Alcock, on the arrival of the medals, sent an intimation to that effect to the Japanese authorities, but the latter showed no desire whatever to find out the individuals entitled to them ... The reluctance of the Japanese to aid in distributing the medals was due to the danger which in those days every Japanese would run who was known to receive an honour from a foreign Sovereign for defending a foreigner against a Japanese. The Government and those concerned did not wish to run the terrible risk attaching to such an equivocal honour; thus the matter was suffered to drop, and the medals getting into an unused safe, the key of which was lost, remained there until the other day. Naturally great difficulty is now experienced in tracing the persons entitled. ...’

The ‘Medal for Gallantry in Defence of the British Legation’ was a special striking of the Board of Trade Foreign Service Medal - more usually awarded with a standard reverse for the saving of British lives at sea. In a letter written by Mr Leonard Wyon to Mr R. A. Hill of the Royal Mint, dated 10 July 1889, Wyon states that one gold and 82 silver medals were struck. (Ref. Medals and Decorations of the British Army & Navy, by J. H. Mayo).