Orders, Decorations and Medals

A fine Light Brigade charger’s group of three to Major W. W. Graham, 6th Dragoon Guards, late 17th Lancers, who was ‘specially recommended for a Cornetcy on account of his distinguished gallantry at Balaklava

Crimea 1854-56, 4 clasps, Alma, Balaklava, Inkermann, Sebastopol (Serjt. W. W. Graham, 17th Lans.) contemporary engraved naming in the style of Hunt & Roskell; Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Lieut. Wm. Wallace Graham, 6th Dragn. Guards); Turkish Crimea, Sardinian issue, unnamed, all fitted with silver ribbon buckles, very fine or better (3)
£8000-10000

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

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Sold with the following presentation and associated items:

i. Silver presentation goblet, 195mm high, hallmarked London 1877, maker’s mark ‘KL HL’, inscribed ‘Presented to Captn. W. W. Graham by the N.C. Officers and men of K Troop Carabiniers on his leaving the Regt. Decr. 1877’.

ii. Silver case for four cigars, hallmarked Birmingham 1867, maker’s mark ‘GU’, the lid inscribed ‘W.W.G. VI. D.G.’

iii. Four pouch or belt badges and fittings, including large silvered 17th Lancers skull and crossed bones device, and large bronze badge of the Carabiniers with battle honours for Sebastopol and Delhi.

William Wallace Graham was born in Dublin in 1831, and enlisted into the 17th Lancers in London in 1848. He was promoted to Sergeant in May 1854 and appointed Orderly Room Clerk on 25 September 1854. He was present at the affair at Mackenzie’s Farm, and took part in the battle of Alma, the charge made by the Light Brigade at Balaklava, and the battle of Inkermann. He was also present at Tchernaya and the siege and fall of Sebastopol. He resigned as Orderly Room Clerk and reverted to Sergeant in June 1855, becoming Troop Sergeant Major the following October. He was gazetted Cornet in the 6th Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers) in May 1856 whilst en route from the Crimea to England, a service newspaper apparently stating at the time of his death that he was ‘specially recommended for a Cornetcy on account of his distinguished gallantry at Balaklava’. He was present with the 6th Dragoon Guards at the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny at Meerut on 19 May 1857. Promoted to Lieutenant in November 1857, he served throughout the Rohilcund campaign in 1858 and in the Oude campaign of 1858-59, being wounded at Kukerowlee on 30 April 1858. He retired as a Major in 1878 and is listed as a member of the Balaklava Commemoration Society in 1879. Major Graham later lived at Violet Hill House, Stowmarket, and was a Churchwarden and local historian there until his death on 16 August 1889.