Orders, Decorations and Medals

A rare Syria and Crimean War campaign group of five awarded to Captain T. L. Gaussen, Royal Navy

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Syria (Mate) fitted with silver ribbon buckle; Crimea 1854-55, 3 clasps, Inkermann, Sebastopol, Azoff (Lt., “Agamemnon” 17 Octr. 1854 “Trenches”) contemporary engraved naming; Order of the Medjidie, 5th class, silver, gold and enamel, the reverse attractively inscribed (Medjidie Captn. Gaussen R.N. 1858) and fitted with brooch pin; St Jean D’Acre 1840, silver, sometime lightly gilded, fitted with swivel bar suspension and ribbon buckle; Turkish Crimea 1855, Sardinian issue, named (Captain, R.N.) fitted with swivel-bar suspension and ribbon buckle, very light contact marks, otherwise good very fine (5) £800-1000

Thomas Lovette Gaussen entered the Royal Navy as a Midshipman in June 1832, and saw service in the Mediterranean aboard H.M. Ships Mastiff, Endymion and Asia, before passing his examination as Mate in September 1838. Still aboard Asia he was present at the blockade of Alexandria during the Syrian operations of 1840, and afterwards on the Cape of Good Hope station aboard H.M.S. Isis, in which ship, as officer of the watch during a heavy gale, Gaussen sustained a very severe injury. As the acting Lieutenant of this ship in 1842 he was present at the relief of two companies of the 27th Regiment who had been hemmed in by Boers at Natal. Promoted to Lieutenant in 1845, Gaussen was appointed to Calypso and, in 1848, received special mention from his Captain for his exertions at the destruction of three towns in an affair with the Fiji Islanders. In 1852 he was concerned in a successful search for the remains of the Patagonian missionary party under Commander Gardiner, which had perished on Picton’s Island, to the south of Tierra del Fuego.

He next joined Agamemnon, flag ship of Sir Edmund Lyons, in which ship Gaussen saw extensive service during the Crimean War. He was present at the reduction of Redout-Kaleh and the forts on the coast of Circassia, where he commanded the boats of Agamemnon in the attack on the ‘Old Fort’, at the capture of Balaklava, and in the attack of 17th October on the sea defences of Sebastopol, when he was wounded in the left thigh by a splinter. On this occasion Agamemnon had four killed and 25 wounded. On 5th November Gaussen took part in the battle of Inkermann serving on shore with the Naval Brigade, and also in similar operations before Sebastopol. From 1 January 1855, until after the fall of Sebastopol, he did duty for the Commander of Agamemnon, that officer being absent in the trenches. Thus he accompanied the expedition to Kertch, and commanded the launches of Agamemnon at the capture of immense stores accumulated at Taganrog, Marioupol, and Gheisk, in the Sea of Azoff, and also assisted in the reduction of Kinburn. In acknowledgement of his valuable services he was presented by Sir Edmund Lyons with a Commander’s commission in honour of the fall of Sebastopol. In November 1857 Gaussen joined the Coast Guard at Dundalk. He died in 1865.