Captain Samuel Barker, 11th Foot

Military General Service 1793-1814, 1 clasp, Salamanca (Saml. Barker, Capt. 11th Foot.) good very fine £1800-2200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Napoleonic War Medals.

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Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, December 1999, ex Cole-Mackintosh Collection.

Only three officers in the 11th Foot received this single clasp.

Details of Samuel Barker’s early appointments and service are scant but he appears, as an Ensign in the 20th Foot, to have purchased a Lieutenancy in the 31st Foot in 1804. By 1805 he must have transferred to the 18th Foot in the same rank as he then transfers to a vacancy in the 52nd Foot on 28 March of that year. He was appointed a Captain in the 11th Foot on 3 December 1807. Barker served in the Peninsula from August 1809 to September 1812, and was present at the siege of the forts at Salamanca, the battle of Salamanca, and the siege of Burgos. The 'Bloody Eleventh' earned their soubriquet at the battle of Salamanca, where they suffered casualties amounting to 45 killed and 296 wounded. Captain Barker retired from the army on 15 October 1812.