Waterloo medals at Tennants
Rare medals awarded to Corporal John Rushton who fought in the Battle of Waterloo sold for £5,580 (includes 24% Buyer’s Premium) in Tennants Auctioneers’ Militaria and Ethnographic Sale on 8 September. The medals comprise a Military General Service Medal, with clasp for ‘Talavera’, and the Waterloo Medal.
John Rushton, a labourer from Elston, Nottinghamshire, was born c. 1792. He enlisted in the 23rd Regiment Light Dragoons in 1808 and went on to fight at the Battle of Talavera in 1809, which took place southwest of Madrid as part of the Peninsular War. The 23rd Regiment bore the brunt of the British attack on the French Infantry, and Rushton was wounded alongside 3,717 of his comrades. He was promoted to Corporal in 1815, and in the same year fought at Waterloo, and he is listed on the Waterloo Medal Roll. He was discharged in 1817 when his regiment was disbanded, was admitted as a Chelsea Pensioner in 1853 at the age of 61 and died in 1866.
A rare World War I memorial plaque in memory of Nursing
Sister Emily Dawes sold for
£3,720. Memorial plaques were issued to the next of kin of all
British Empire service personnel who died as a result of World
War I and were nicknamed the ‘Dead Man’s Penny’. Around the outside is the legend, altered to ‘SHE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR’ for female personnel. Alice Emily Dawes, known as Emily, was born in London on 7 December 1889, and enlisted in the Army on 15 October 1917. She served as a Nursing Sister with Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service but died of influenza and pneumonia on 23 October 1918. Emily was buried in Bedford Cemetery in a Commonwealth War Grave. Medals from the Boer War are always popular. Here was a pair awarded to 546 Corporal J Roads, Military Foot Police, comprising Queen's South Africa Medal with three clasps ‘TUGELA HEIGHTS’, ‘RELIEF OF LADYSMITH’ and ‘TRANSVAAL’, and King's
South Africa Medal with two clasps ‘SOUTH AFRICA 1901’ and ‘SOUTH AFRICA 1902’, together with a South Africa 1900 New Year tin. They sold for £347.20.
If you’re a collector of cap and collar badges then check out this lot containing around 100 of them. It consisted of British Regiments and Corps, with King's and QE II crowns, including a British V-Force Commando Special Forces blackened brass badge, possibly a copy, and some restrikes, together with a quantity of VR titles and cotter pins, two belt clasps, buttons and five Imperial War Museum photographs of World War I scenes from Mons, Arras, Loos, Suvla and Baghdad. It sold for just £272.80.
Speaking of WWI, how about something for your wall in the shape of a WWI propeller. Constructed from solid hardwood, with no visible markings, the centre with six fixing holes, no hub, 210cm, it sold for £223.20. Still in WWI, everyone loves a Pickelhaube and here were two in one lot. These Prussian lids were each made of leather construction with stamped copper helmet plates and leather liner, one with steel spike and back rib with ventilation slide, one with brass spike, back rib with ventilation slide, leather chinstrap and enamelled steel cockades. Now, because of the condition which included cracking to the surface of the leather, perished stitching and loose helmet plates, the steel spike and purlring of one was rust-pitted, with a loose bent brass visor mount, the upper estimate was £250. Didn’t stop the buyers going after them with a sold price of £1,364.
Sparking interest and selling for £868 and doubling the bottom estimate was a George III Brass Crossbelt Plate to the Loyal Macclesfield Volunteer Infantry, which was found buried in a garden in Harrogate. Also selling well was a Victorian Eastern Counties Railway Truncheon, which sold for £744 and a Japanese Shin Shinto Tanto (short dagger), which sold for £2,728.
Finally, a bit of Third Reich militaria. One grouping that contained an SS Four Year Bronze Service medal, with oblong suspender loop and blue ribbon; a Spanish Wound Badge in gold, of pierced oval form, the hollow stamped back with magnetic vertical needle shaped pin; an Arbeitsbuch, with official stamps and entries for Hut work in Laurahutte from 16 December 1939 to 16 August 1940; a small photograph album, containing a quantity of copy photographs of World War I and II German soldiers produced by W Tobin, London. It all sold for £173.60.
■