Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Military General Service 1793-1814, 10 clasps, Corunna, Busaco, Fuentes D’Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Orthes, Toulouse (T. Holmes, 95th Foot, Rifles.) a few small edge bruises and contact marks to obverse, otherwise very fine £2,400-£3,000

Provenance: Spink N.C., May 1975; Glendining’s, March 1976; Sotheby, July 1986; Michael March, December 1995.

Thomas Holmes was born in the Parish of Stanton, Leicestershire, and enlisted into 1st Battalion, 95th Foot on 18 April 1805, a frame work knitter by trade. He served for 11 years 96 days and was discharged at York on 2 July 1816, in consequence of ‘wound near the knee joint of right leg, and one on back of right leg, received in the action of Waterloo on the 18th day of June 1815.’ The surgeon in his report also certified that ‘Private Thomas Holmes served with the Regiment through the whole campaign in the Peninsula and was wounded there through the right arm.’ Holmes was also present in the expedition to Copenhagen under Lord Cathcart in 1807. At Waterloo he served in Captain Johnson’s Company which occupied a position on a knoll overlooking the sandpit. Thomas Holmes, Chelsea Pensioner, occupation stockinger, died at Stanton, Leicestershire, on 1 October 1854, aged 69.

Sold with copied discharge papers, muster details and other research.