India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Pegu (F. W. Austen, Captn. “Hastings”) extremely fine £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals Formed by The Late John Cooper.

View
Collection

Francis William Austen was born on 12 July 1809, the eldest son of Admiral Sir Frances W. Austen, K.C.B., whose sister Jane was the distinguished authoress. He entered the Navy in 1822 and embarked on board the Revenge, in which ship he was present, in 1824, at the demonstration made before Algiers. During the next four years he saw much boat service against pirates before being appointed Mate of the Blonde in August 1828. In the following October he was employed on shore in the construction of batteries and in otherwise co-operating with the French army at the reduction of Morea Castle, which surrendered after a siege of eight days (Gazette 1828, p. 2201). He was promoted, in consequence of the very favourable certificates of Captain Lyons, to the rank of Lieutenant in April 1830, and subsequently served on the North America, West India, and African stations, in the Gannet, Tweed, Wanderer, and Bonetta. While in the Tweed, of which, on the death of Captain Bertram, he had the charge for three months, a period during which a fourth of the crew was swept away by yellow fever, he commanded her boats for the suppression of slavery off the Isle of Pines, where he had the misfortune, through the bursting of a powder horn, of losing the use of the fore-finger and thumb of his right hand.

In November 1841 he was promoted to the rank of Commander, and in November 1845 was given command of the Alecto steam sloop, of 3 32-pounders and 80 men. Proceeding in her to the Rio de La Plata, he soon joined in the hostilities against General Rosas. On 10 February 1846 he was engaged with the enemy’s batteries at Tonelero, on the Parana river, and had five men wounded (Gazette 1846, p. 3210). On 6 April, while passing up the same river with three heavily-laden schooners in tow against a current of three knots and a head-wind, he was for an hour and ten minutes in action with a battery of seven 18-pounders on the heights of San Lorenzo. His good conduct on this occasion was brought to the notice of the Commander-in-Chief by Captain Hotham, the senior officer in the Parana (Gazette 1846, p. 3209). On 4 June in the same year the Alecto formed part of the Anglo-French squadron which escorted a convoy of 110 vessels of all nations to comparative safety through the fire of between sixteen and twenty guns, brought together by General Rosas at San Lorenzo, for the express purpose of obstructing their progress down the river (Gazette 1846, p. 3354). For these services he was promoted to the rank of Captain in November 1846. His last appointment was in January 1850, to the Hastings, as Flag-Captain to his uncle, Rear-Admiral Austen, on the East India and China station. In 1852 he succeeded in taking the Hastings to Rangoon on the Irrawaddy, where her boats became actively employed during the closing operations of the Burmese war. He accompanied the Rear-Admiral to Prome in the East India Company’s steamer Pluto, the vessel on board which he died. The Hastings was paid off on 5 May 1853 (Medal).