Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Algiers (J. L. Clayton, Midshipman) original ribbon, minor marks, otherwise, good very fine £2500-3000

John Lloyd Clayton was born in August 1796, the third son of Sir William Clayton, Bt., of Harleyford, Buckinghamshire.

Entering the Royal Navy as a First Class Volunteer aboard H.M.S. Poictiers in April 1810, he served on the Home and American Stations until removing to the Tonnant in early 1814, in which period he was appointed Midshipman.

Other brief appointments having followed, including service in the yacht Royal Sovereign under Captain Sir J. P. Beresford on the occasion that Louis XVIII was conveyed to Calais, Clayton joined the Ajax on the Mediterranean Station in February 1815.

Removing thence to the Queen Charlotte, flagship of Lord Exmouth, he was present at the battle of Algiers on 27 August 1816, and ‘received, on the quarter-deck, the thanks of his chief for his gallantry in sinking a burning vessel which had been rapidly approaching the flagship’.

Shortly thereafter returning to appointments in royal yachts, Clayton served under Captain Sir Edward Owen in the Royal Sovereign, in which vessel he escorted the Queen Dowager, the Dukes and Duchesses of Kent, Cumberland, Cambridge and Hesse Homburg, and the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, and afterwards in the Royal George under Captain Hon. Charles Paget, and was promoted to Lieutenant in November 1818.

This appears to have been his final seagoing appointment, and in later life he presided as a Magistrate in Middlesex and for the liberties of Westminster. Clayton, who married Louisa Sophia in April 1832, died at his residence in Portman Square, London in October 1855, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Sold with a fine pair of portrait miniatures of Lieutenant Clayton and his wife, Louisa Sophia, 10cm. by 12cm., in larger matching wooden frames with gilt corner decoration; together with his Royal Naval Officer’s sword, 1827 pattern, the 76cm. pipe-backed blade lightly etched with crowned fouled anchor, etc., regulation half-basket guard, lion’s head pommel, fish-skin covered grip bound with copper wire, complete with black leather scabbard with three mounts, blade rust damaged and mounts worn overall.