Board of Trade Foreign Services Medal for Gallantry in Defence of the British Legation in Japan 1861, silver, the reverse with specially struck inscription ‘Presented by the British Government for Gallantry in Defence of the British Legation. July 6th 1861’, unnamed, extremely fine and scarce
£300-400

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The collection of Medals formed by the Late Clive Nowell.

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Collection

A letter dated 10 July 1889 from Mr Leonard Wyon to Mr R. A. Hill of the Royal Mint stated that 82 of these medals were struck in silver and one in gold.

Following Japan’s enforced emergence onto the international scene in 1853, a commercial treaty was agreed with the United States of America in March 1854, and a similar treaty with Great Britain in October of the same year. Such trade links as these with foreign governments had many powerful opponents, numbers of the nobility and samurai class being violently opposed to western influence. Foreigners were frequently attacked by disaffected Japanese, often ‘Ronin’, former samurai who owed no allegiance to ant feudal lord.

Such an attack occurred on the night of 5/6 July 1861, when a band broke into the temple where the British Legation was quartered and wounded several of its staff. The Japanese guard of the Legation, the Yacunins, fought bravely to defend it, and this medal was struck to reward them. However, none were ever issued, and in 1889 they were discovered in a long-disused safe in the Tokyo Legation. Apparently the matter had been dropped after it was realised that by awarding these medals the lives of the recipients themselves would be put in great danger.