Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, St. Domingo (Edwd. W. Hayes, Midshipman.) nicely toned, brilliant extremely fine £3600-4000

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, April 2004; Turl Collection of Naval General Service Medals 1793-1840, Spink, July 2010.

Confimed on the Admiralty roll as a Midshipman aboard the Magicienne for St Domingo. A total of 13 medals with this clasp to this ship, Hayes being the only officer.

Edward William Hayes was born about 11 November 1788, in Coleman Street, London. He enlisted into the Royal Navy at the age of 15 as a volunteer and joined his first ship, H.M.S. Magicienne, at Chatham on 23 July 1803. Shortly afterwards he was re-entered in the ship’s books as a ‘Volunteer or 1st Class’, the rank allocated to Boys in training as potential officers and destined in due course for promotion to midshipmen. Hayes was promoted to Midshipman on 1 January 1806, and the following month was on board Magicienne when it participated in the battle of St Domingo as part of the squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir John Duckworth which captured three and destroyed two French ships of the line.

There is no record of Hayes taking the lieutenant’s examination and being passed for a commission, and he next appears in the musters of H.M.S. Clyde, having joined as a volunteer at Deal on 14 April 1807, as an Able Seaman. In December 1807 he was discharged to H.M.S. President on appointment as Clerk to the recently appointed Captain of that ship, Adam Mackenzie, under whom he had served in Magicienne. He served in President on the South American station until 25 January 1809, when he was discharged at Rio de Janeiro to H.M.S. Bedford, in company with Mackenzie as the new captain of Bedford and several other members of the President’s crew. However, he only remained in Bedford until 13 February 1809 when he was discharged to H.M.S. Marlborough for passage to England, where he was finally discharged from the service at Plymouth on 12 May 1809.

Accompanying research shows that he next found employment as a Clerk with the Bank of England, whose Committee for the Examination of Clerks recorded as follows: ‘Employed as Clerk on Board the President Frigate for the last 12 months, and was in Mr Mears’s Counting House as Ship & Insurance Broker about 6 months, good writing, ready at Accounts.’

Hayes worked at the Bank of England for nearly fifty years until his retirement on 31 January 1861.

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