A Small Collection of Medals to Naval Surgeons

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Java (James Prior, Surgeon) minor surface marks, otherwise good very fine £1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Small Collection of Medals to Naval Surgeons.

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Sir James Prior, Deputy Inspector of Hospitals and Fleets, and author, was born at Lisburn sometime before 1790. He entered the Navy as a Surgeon in November 1807, and served in the boats of Quebec on two occasions, cutting out vessels in the North Sea. He was next appointed to the Nisus frigate and sailed from Plymouth in June 1810 for Simon’s Town, Cape of Good Hope. He was stationed at Mauritius from November 1810 to April 1811, when he had charge of the wounded consequent to the reduction of that island. After visiting the Seychelles Islands and Madras, he was present, in September 1811, at the reduction of Java, after which he returned, via Batavia, to the Cape. This journey Prior described in a ‘Voyage in the Indian Seas in the Nisus frigate during 1810 and 1811,’ published by Sir Richard Phillips in 1820. His next expedition, in the same frigate, was to Table Bay (February 1812), St Helena (January 1813), Rio de Janeiro (October 1813), and Pernambuco (December 1813). This tour he also described in a ‘Voyage along the Eastern Coast of Africa, &c.’ in 1819, and it was included in the second volume of Phillips’s ‘Voyages.’

Prior was present at the surrender of Heligoland, which was confirmed to England by the treaty of Kiel on 14 January 1814. In the same year he was ordered to accompany the Russian Fleet for the conveyance of the first regiment of Imperial Russian Guards from Cherbourg to St Petersburg, and in 1815 he was on the coast of La Vendée, and was present at the surrender of Napoleon on 15 July. He then became Staff Surgeon to the Chatham Division of Royal Marines, and to three of the Royal Yachts. His next appointment was that of Assistant to the Director-General of the Medical Department of the Navy, and on 1 August 1843 he was created Deputy-Inspector of Hospitals and Fleets. He was Knighted at St James’s Palalce on 11 June 1858, was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1830, and F.S.A. on 25 November 1830. For many years before his death he resided at Norfolk Crescent, Hyde Park, and died at Brighton on 14 November 1869.