Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Navarino (E. J. S. Couzens, Volr.) the reverse of the clasp neatly engraved ‘20th Octr. 1827’, toned, nearly extremely fine £2,000-£2,400

J. B. Hayward & Son, June 1976.

Edward John Sinclair Couzens was born at Portsea, Hampshire, on 12 May 1812, and entered the Navy on 22 October 1825, aged 14 years, on board H.M.S. Genoa, 74, Captains Walter Bathurst, Richard Dickinson (Acting) and Hon. Charles Leonard Irby, in which ship he was employed as a Second-Class Volunteer and Master’s Assistant, on the Home, Lisbon and Mediterranean stations, until January 1828. Under Captain Bathurst, who was killed, he fought at the battle of Navarino, 20 October 1827. He served in the Mediterranean for a further period of two years and ten months in the Wasp, 18, under Captains Dickinson (who applied for him), Hon. William Wellesley, Charles Basden, Thomas E. Hoste, and Brunswick Popham, and Mosquito, 10, Captain Charles Bentham, refitting at Valetta, Malta, and then on station at Corfu. He then, in October 1830, rejoined Captain Dickinson, who had again applied for him, in the Talbot, 28, stationed at first at the Cape of Good Hope, and then in the East Indies, where, on the recommendation of the same officer, he was received by the Commander-in-Chief Sir John Gore, in June 1833, on board his flagship, the Melville, 74, Captain Henry Hart.

In November 1830 the Talbot fell in with a French slave brig, the Duc de Bordeaux, bound to Guadaloupe. She had 561 slaves, men, women, and children, on board, huddled together in a state of nudity, in the most horrible and heartrending condition. The French brig ‘was in fine order, and superior to slavers in general: this monster had all the slaves very clean, as well as his decks, and had one 24-pounder a midships, and five smaller guns. The charge of the 24-pounder was drawn, and consisted of all manner of shot, round, canister, and grape, and loaded near to the muzzle. He had on his decks forty-five men all in good health, three sick, and others down looking after the slaves. The depth of his slave deck was exactly three feet two inches... Conformable to a treaty with France, we could not make a prize of her.’ (Letter from Talbot, which appeared in the United Services Journal for 1831 refers).

Having passed his examination for Second Master on 20 April 1832, Couzens was promoted in that rank in the Melville on 23 April 1834. In the following November he was nominated Acting Master of the Magicienne, 24, Captain James Hanway Plumridge, with whom he returned to England. On passing at the Trinity House, he was at once confirmed in the rank of Master on 7 May 1835. From 18 of the latter month until June 1838, he was employed in the Racer 16, Captain James Hope, in the West Indies. The Racer, which captured several slavers, was thrown on her beam-ends in a hurricane and totally dismasted on 29 September 1837, just off the island of Cuba. From 14 August 1838 until 22 July 1842, he was employed in the Actæon 26, Captain Robert Russell, on the east and west coasts of South America. Couzens became a Retired Master on reserved pay on 29 December 1853, by reason of ill-health, and lived afterwards at Huddersfield, Yorkshire, where he entered a business partnership as a woollen cloth manufacturer and merchant. In April 1855 this partnership was legally dissolved having been declared bankrupt. In July 1855 he was appointed to the office of Registrar and General Superintendent of Huddersfield Cemetery, and the bankruptcy appears to have been resolved at the end of 1860. On 11 June 1863, he was promoted to Retired Staff Commander. Edward Couzens died on 4 April 1896, aged 83, and was interred at Huddersfield cemetery.

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