Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

46th Regiment of Foot Merit Medal, 57mm, silver, the obverse engraved with a crowned central roundel, ‘46’ in centre and ‘South Devon Regiment - For Merit’ around, surrounded by a Rose and thistle wreath; the reverse engraved ‘S. Mc.Donnell from his Comrades 1811’, within laurel wreath, with silver loop and small ring suspension, good very fine £240-£280

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the 46th Foot and its Successor Units.

View
Collection

Murray Collection, Sotheby’s, May 1926.

Referenced in Blamer, R360.

Stephen McDonnell attested for the 46th Regiment of Foot around 1791 and served with the regiment ‘in actual and Severe Service, in Gibraltar and the West Indies in 1795 and 1796: - under General Vaughan in the Island of St. Vincent against the French, and the Caribs, - and in the Island of Dominica on 22nd February, 1805, under General Provost, against the French.’

Advanced Sergeant Major of the Regiment, he was commissioned as Quartermaster Donnell (presumably attempting to distance himself from either an Irish or Scottish background) and in 1811 was awarded the above medal. By 1812 his health, ‘daily declining through a severe bruise received on his breast in Dominica during the Hurricane of 1806 of which he had never perfectly recovered, together with the pernicious effects of that climate, having been stationed there at two periods nearly twelve years, and as he is advancing to a time of life (being nearly fifty years of age) at which his health and strength naturally decline, is truly solicitous on finding that from illness he is prevented from fulfilling the regular duties of his office with that vigour and activity so absolutely requisite for one in his situation’, he petitioned for, and was - eventually - granted a Lieutenancy in a Veteran Battalion, being gazetted to the 2nd Royal Veteran Battalion on 8 July 1813.

Sold with copied research.

Note: Owing to the uncertainty that exists with the original provenance and manufacture of some early engraved Regimental and Volunteer Medals, this lot is sold as viewed.