Orders, Decorations and Medals

Military General Service 1793-1814, 2 clasps, Benevente, Orthes (W. Hamlett, 7th Hussars) nearly extremely fine, the first clasp extremely rare £2000-2500

See colour illustration (Plate II).

Ex Dix Noonan Webb sale 25 February 1998, lot 33 (£2300).

William Hamlett was born in Rockerdine, Shropshire, and enlisted in London for the 7th Hussars on 21 December 1804, at the age of twenty six. He served in the regiment for fourteen years, sixty-six days and was discharged at Staines on 12 December 1818, in consequence ‘of length of service, and was wounded by a lance in right shoulder and hip, at Waterloo’. As with several men of this regiment, for whom M.G.S. medals exist, he is not shown on any of the published medal rolls for that medal. Sold with copy discharge papers and copies of the Quarterly Pay-List for the period October 1808 until the regiment left Spain in January 1809. These latter confirm Hamlett’s presence in Spain at the time of the action at Benevente on 29 December 1808, and show that he returned to England on board the transport Hannah on 31 January 1809. The regiment returned to France in 1814 and subsequently took part in the battle of Waterloo in 1815.