A Collection of Medals to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines formed by Commander Ron Champion, RN

A rare Second China War C.B. group of three awarded to Admiral Hon. K. Stewart, Royal Navy

The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, C.B. (Military) breast badge in gold and enamels, indistinct hallmarks, complete with swivel-ring suspension and gold riband buckle; Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Navarino (Hon., Volr. 1st Class); China 1857-60, 2 clasps, Fatshan 1857, Canton 1857, unnamed as issued the first slightly chipped in places and with one or two loose fitments, the last with refixed suspension, edge nicks but generally good very fine (3) £1500-2000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines formed by Commander Ron Champion, RN.

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C.B. London Gazette 20 May 1859.

Keith Stewart was born in 1814, the son of the 8th Earl of Galloway, and entered the Royal Navy as a Midshipman aboard H.M.S. Victory at Portsmouth in April 1827, quickly seeing action as a Volunteer 1st Class aboard the Asia at Navarino in October of the same year. Returning to home waters in the course of 1830, he enjoyed several more seagoing appointments and was advanced to Lieutenant in June 1833. Subsequently employed on the Lisbon Station, he transferred to the Cornwallis in early 1837 and served off North America and in the West Indies. And in October 1838, in the rank of Commander, he was appointed Captain of the Ringdove, in which ship he was employed in the suppression of the slave trade in the West Indies and in protecting the fisheries in the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Having been advanced to Captain in July 1842, Stewart was appointed to the command of the Termagant on the eve of the Baltic operations of 1854-55, and in her won praise for his conduct at the attack on Bomersund (Letter from Sir Charles Napier, dated 11 August 1854, refers). Later in the year he assumed command of the Nankin, winning the approbation of Rear-Admiral Sir M. Seymour for his ‘active operations’ against pirates off China in 1856.

Between 1857-59, for his part in the Second China War aboard the same ship, Stewart was thrice gazetted for his good work, not least in the Canton operations; his other achievements included a successful action with Chinese war junks in the summer of 1857 and participation in a punitive expedition under General van Straubenzee ‘to enact retribution for a Flag of Truce having been fired upon.’ Having been appointed a Commodore 2nd Class in March 1857, Stewart’s services in the China War were finally rewarded with a C.B.

Advanced to Rear-Admiral in May 1862, to Vice-Admiral in October 1867 and to full Admiral in July 1875, Stewart died in September 1879.