Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Waterloo Medal awarded to Corporal Samuel Tar, Royal Scots Greys, who fought with Sergeant Ewart in Captain Vernor’s Troop at Waterloo, where he was severely wounded by a bayonet in the left foot and by a lance in the left leg and between the shoulders on the 18th of June 1815

Waterloo 1815 (Corporal Samuel Tar, 2nd or R.N. Brit. Reg. Drag.) fitted with steel clip and ring suspension, edge bruising and contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine £6,000-£8,000

Provenance: An Important Collection of Waterloo Medals, Buckland Dix & Wood, December 1994.

Samuel Tar/Tarr was born at Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, and enlisted there into the 2nd Dragoons on 26 December 1804, at the age of eighteen. He was a Corporal in Captain Vernor’s troop at Waterloo, the very troop that numbered among its members one of the most famous Waterloo heroes, Sergeant Charles Ewart, who captured the Eagle of the French 45th Regiment. Samuel Tar was evidently in the thick of the fighting as evidenced by his discharge papers which state that he was ‘severely wounded by a bayonet in the left foot and by a lance in the left leg and between the shoulders on the 18th of June 1815 at Waterloo.’ He was discharged to pension at Chelsea Hospital on 25 September 1822, aged 35, with 19 years 9 months service, including 2 years for Waterloo.