REVIEW: ORDERS, DECORATIONS, MEDALS & MILITARIA: 8 NOVEMBER

A Naval General Service Medal selling for an above-estimate £17,000 in this sale recalls an important action off Tarifa in Spain in April 1812, which truncated the career of the notorious Genoese privateer Giuseppe Bavastro.

It was awarded to Commander Thomas Cull, R.N., who was Acting-Lieutenant in command of No 16 gun-boat at the defence of Tarifa in various gallant attacks on enemy privateers, during one of which he was wounded, as well as that involving Bavastro in the Mole of Malaga.

Cull's various gallant earned him promotion to Lieutenant.

Thomas Cull was born in 1793, at Poole, Dorset and joined the Navy on 19 September 1803, as First Class Volunteer on board the Repulse 74. His initial seven years of service in the Home and Mediterranean stations included Sir Robert Calder’s action with the combined fleets of France and Spain on 22 July 1805; the capture of the Marengo, of 80 guns, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Linois, and 40-gun frigate Belle Poule, 13 March 1806; the taking also of Le President 44, by a squadron under Sir Thomas Louis, 27 September 1806; the passage of the Dardanelles in February 1807; and the expedition to the Walcheren in August 1809. In the last of these actions, Cull accidentally fell from the fore topmast cross-trees on the lee gangway, and had the misfortune to break two of his ribs.

In 1811 he joined the flotilla service on Gibraltar and Cadiz stations, assuming the command of No. 16 gun-boat with the rank of Acting-Lieutenant, that July.
 
On the night of 29 April 1812, Captain Thomas Ussher, of the Hyacinth, with his own boats, supported by the Goshawk and its Commander, James Lilburn, as well as Resolute, with Lieutenant John Keenan, and Cull with the gunboat No. 16, attacked a flotilla of privateers commanded by Bavastro, then lying within the mole at Malaga, under the protection of two batteries.

Ussher attacked the larger battery, taking it in less than five minutes and turning its fifteeen 24-pounder guns on the opposite castle of Gibralfaro. Meanwhile, his supporting boats had made it into the harbour, taking a number of prizes.

They remained under critical fire from Gibralfaro, however, and Ussher resorted to bringing out Bavastro's vessel, the Intrepido, and the Napoleone, from the harbour, while leaving the rest within, but with severe damage.

The action cost the British 15 killed – including Lilburn – and 53 wounded out of a force of 149 officers and men. Wounded, Cull was invalided home three months later.

In 1813-14, he served off the north coast of Spain at the sieges of Guetaria, Castro, and San Sebastian, and was also employed in the Rivers Adour and Gironde.

When his ship, The Lyra, was paid off in August 1815, it was the end of active service for Cull, who held no appointment again for 32 years.

In 1847 he was nominated an Agent in the Contract Mail Steam Service and employed, from 12 June 1849 until his promotion to the rank of Commander, 16 February 1852, in the Ordinary at Devonport, with his name on the books of the Agincourt 72, and St George 120.

Commander Cull was latterly a magistrate for the borough of Totnes, in Devonshire. He married, first, in 1815, Miss Jemima Colson, of Exeter, by whom he had a daughter, and, secondly, in 1820, Miss Mary Ann Spear, of Monkton, Dorset. He was widowed for the second time in 1843.

Commander Cull died at Poole, Dorset, in 1886, in his 94th year.