Military General Service 1793-1814, 5 clasps, Talavera, Albuhera, Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse (James Raynor, 4th Light Dragoons) extremely fine £1000-1200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Series of Peninsular War Medals.

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Ex Baldwin, January 1953; just 35 Military General Service 1793-1814 Medals are known to have survived to men of the 4th Light Dragoons, 24 of them with the “Albuhera” clasp.

James Raynor was born in Nottingham in 1791 and enlisted in the 4th Dragoons in October 1807, aged 16 years.

The Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Edward Somerset, arrived at Lisbon in April 1809, with Raynor on the strength of Captain Wright’s Troop, and first went into action at Talavera, where it charged alongside the 23rd Light Dragoons - but fortunately managed to avoid the hidden nullah that proved so fatal to the 23rd.

In April 1811, Raynor and his comrades were sent to assist in the operations around Badajoz and so became involved in the battle of Albuhera in the following month, when, under the cover of a thunderstorm, the French cavalry virtually annihilated Colborne’s Brigade. In response, the 4th Dragoons, part of Lumley’s Brigade, were launched against the enemy Hussars and Lancers, even though heavily outnumbered, and, to begin with at least, managed to check the latter’s excesses; later still, they acted in support of Cole’s critical and strikingly successful infantry assault on the deadlocked protagonists.

Shortly after, on 25 May, Lumley’s Brigade, 980 sabres strong with the addition of the 3rd Dragoon Guards and 13th Light Dragoons, together with another 1000 Portuguese and 300 Spanish, was screening Beresford’s movements and had taken up a position behind the bridge and village of Usagre, a defile through which the French must pass. The two leading regiments of French Dragoons were allowed to come over the bridge and, while the third regiment was coming across and other horsemen were strung out through the village, Lumley charged suddenly upon the first brigade - the French were thrown into complete confusion, being quite unable to manoeuvre, losing 250 killed and wounded and 80 prisoners. This model action, known as the ‘Combat of Usagre’, is warmly spoken of by cavalry authorities.

In February 1812, the 4th Dragoons became part of Le Marchant’s Heavy Brigade and at Salamanca that July took part in the famous charge against a mass of broken French infantry, when three divisions were destroyed in some 30 minutes. This was the most decisive, perhaps the only decisive, stroke by cavalry in any of the Duke’s Peninsula battles. Unfortunately Le Marchant, that rare bird, a British cavalry commander of real ability, was killed in the action, shot through the spine.

After further service at Vittoria and Toulouse, Raynor was embarked for India, from where he was invalided back to England in December 1823, a victim of chronic dysentery. Placed on the strength of the 3rd Royal Veterans’ Battalion in July of the following year, he was finally discharged at Chatham in June 1826, aged about 35 years.

In July 1860 he was admitted as an in-pensioner of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where he died in March 1865; interestingly, a William Raynor, also from Nottingham, served with James throughout his career in the 4th Dragoons, and may well have been his brother - his Peninsular Medal is also known to have survived.