REVIEW: ORDERS, DECORATIONS, MEDALS & MILITARIA: 11 OCTOBER

He was the only non-commissioned officer mentioned in Napier’s History of the Peninsula War, thanks to his courageous capture of a unit of enemy cavalry four times his own patrol’s number. Now Troop Sergeant-Major William Hanley’s historic and unique Peninsula awards have sold at Noonans for £30,000.

Hanley, of the 14th Light Dragoons, was among the single officer and 17 other ranks to receive the maximum 11 clasps earned by the regiment during the Peninsula War, all with this same combination. His outstanding service, resulting in a special silver medal, came at Blasco Sancho on 25 July 1812.

Hanley’s patrol of three men of the 14th Light Dragoons and four men of the 1st Hussars of the King’s German Legion captured a piquet of French cavalrymen numbering two officers, two N.C.O.s and 27 Dragoons.

At the time no general awards for gallantry or distinguished conduct existed, but as in this case, exceptional service could lead to Regimental Colonels or Regiments making individual awards.

Such was Hanley’s achievement that the Officers of the regiment presented him with the special silver medal at a full dress parade. It was included alongside the Peninsula Medal with 11 clasps in the group sold at this auction.

The group has passed through several major collections over the past 150 years, starting with the Fleming Collection in 1871. Notably, F.J. Ridsdale of Johannesburg had it in his possession when he also acquired a letter written by the Duke of Wellington on the 5th May 1831 to Major, the Hon. W. F. de Roos (later a general and Colonel of the 4th Hussars), which enclosed manuscript accounts of Hanley’s action. In response to descriptions of the action, Wellington wrote:

“My dear de Roos,
Some time has elapsed since I ought to have returned you the enclosed papers. The man is a very good one, but I really do not know what I can now do for him. I have not the most distant recollection of the affair or of the Dispatch. The best thing to do would be to find the Dispatch; and then we will see how we can give the Man an authentic copy of it.
Believe me ever yours most sincerely,
Wellington”

The Dispatch to which Wellington refers was written to Earl Bathurst from Olmedo on 28th July 1812: the relevant portion of which reads as follows:-

“A non-commissioned officer’s patrole of the 14th Light Dragoons and 1st Hussars, from Arevalo, took in Blasco Sancho, on the evening of the 25th., shortly after the King had left the place, 2 officers and 27 of the King’s cavalry, who had been left there to follow his rear guard.”

Hanley himself had written a contemporaneous account of the patrol – included here – which had been endorsed by Major J. Townsend of the regiment before being submitted to Roos, then a Major in the 1st Regt. Life Guards.

The account describes how the patrol learnt from a local Spaniard about the picquet of cavalry being housed on the edge of the town they had approached.

Capturing four of the picquet who were out foraging before they could raise the alarm, under Hanley’s command the patrol attacked the house, taking the remainder of the picquet by surprise.

Despite being trapped and under fire, the picquet were determined to resist until Hanley summoned their officer and threatened to burn the house down with them in it unless they surrendered.

“A short time after he returned and gave me his Sword, saying they were Prisoners of War, each man leading his horse up the passage until the whole picquet, file after file, came out.”

Hanley and his men disarmed the prisoners, capturing an additional officer in the process, and then formed them into ranks, before marching them back to his own lines some miles distant.

Hanley, who had been born in Carlow, in south-eastern Ireland, enlisted in November 1806 at the age of 14. He was present in every engagement fought by the regiment in the Peninsula and in North America and was afterwards appointed Foreman of Stores at the Tower of London until his death in September 1859.

The group was sold with the original letters and affidavits referred to here, together with a comprehensive file of research including copied discharge documents and another lengthy account by Hanley of the “Blanchez Sanchez” affair originally published in the United Service Journal in November 1840.