A scarce Royal Marines M.S.M. group of three awarded to Sergeant Joseph Hetheridge, Royal Marine Artillery, a Crimean veteran who received his award in 1919

Crimea 1854-56, 1 clasp, Sebastopol, unnamed as issued; Royal Marines Meritorious Service Medal, G.V.R., Field Marshal’s bust (Joseph Hetheridge, Sergt. 6th Company. R.M.A.); Turkish Crimea 1855, Sardinian issue, unnamed, neatly plugged at 12 o’clock and fitted with later straight bar suspension, good very fine (3) £600-£800

M.S.M. announced in GO 42 of 1919 and awarded on 24 May 1919. One of 35 award issued with G.V.R. Field Marshal’s bust.

Joseph Hetheridge was born in Portsmouth in 1839 and enlisted in the Royal Marine Artillery in May 1854, aged 15. He was posted to the new screw steamer Royal Albert, soon to be flagship of the British fleet operating in the Black Sea. Royal Albert was a fine, new warship, launched in 1854; she was a three-decker mounting 121 guns and the largest and most powerful warship at that time. She must have been a very impressive ‘first appointment’ for a 15 year old! Royal Albert led the powerful fleet of 60 British and French warships (with 18,000 soldiers) to seize the Straits of Kertch in May 1855 - the precursor of the campaign in the Sea of Azoff. Hetheridge, however, may have escaped even minimal sea-going duties. Since he was later awarded the Crimea medal with clasp Sebastopol he was presumably part of the Royal Marine contingent landed from the fleet to serve ashore as early as September 1854 - only two weeks after the allied expeditionary force landed in Kalamita Bay. The initial R.M. contribution was 25 Officers and 988 Royal Marines, landed on 29 September, followed a few days later by another 10 Officers and 212 men. Eventually, a force of 2,400 sailors and 2,000 Royal Marines was landed at Balaklava, the Marines formed in to R.M. battalions. Most of the Marines were positioned in a cordon around Balaklava, taking in the village of Kadikoi, and constructed defensive lines of trenches, gun positions etc. (known as "Marine Heights") forming a peripheral defence for the British port. Apart from these positions, some of the Marine Artillery manned the naval guns mounted as part of the artillery force bombarding the city and served throughout the siege; it is presumably this force in which Hetheridge served and earned the Sebastopol clasp. After more than a year ashore, the Naval and R.M. contingents returned to their ships on 11 September 1855, the day after Sebastopol was entered by the allies following the last assault on 9 September. On the 17, amidst great cheering, flag-waving and the sound of regimental bands, they embarked at Balaklava and left the land theatre, having received the ‘hearty thanks’ of the Commander in Chief, General Simpson. Of the approximately 4,500 R.N. and R.M. personnel who had landed, 8 officers and 95 men were killed, and 38 officers and 437 men wounded. Hetheridge was presumably back aboard Royal Albert for her last significant action during the war - the Allied attack on the forts on the spit at Kinburn, to the west of the Crimea, guarding the estuary of the Dnieper. Some of the men of Royal Albert went ashore with rescue parties to put out fires in the damaged forts and rescue stores. This, a month after the fall of Sebastopol, was the last major action of the Russian War in the Black Sea. It is recorded that when Royal Albert returned to Constantinople after the campaign, Hetheridge was one of the ship's Guard of Honour formed to welcome a visit by the Sultan. This ended Hetheridge's first and last taste of war. All this had taken place at the beginning of his career - he was only 16 when it ended - and he went on to serve in the R.M.A. until 1878, including service on H.M.S. Warrior, finally being discharged as a Sergeant after 24 years' total service, of which 21 were ‘of age’. Clearly a man for whom the Marines were a significant part of his life, Hetheridge did not stray far when he ‘retired’ in 1878 for, in 1881, he got a job as a nurse at the R.M.A. hospital in Portsmouth and stayed for 18 years, finally leaving in 1899. Strangely, there is no trace of an award to him of the Naval L.S. & G.C. medal, though fully 43 years after he retired from the R.M.A., he was to receive in 1919 the Royal Marines Meritorious Service Medal. But the Crimean War was to linger. For some unknown reason, although Hetheridge received his British medal and clasp for the Crimea, his Turkish medal never arrived. It may have rankled with him and he must have made representations in later years to try to get the medal he was entitled to. Eventually, in July 1913, his local M.P., Bertram Falle (later Lord Portsea), not unsurprisingly took a great interest in naval matters, and took up the case, arranging with the Ottoman authorities for the presentation of this long-delayed award. Hetheridge, then aged 74, was taken to the Turkish Embassy in London, under the patronage of the M.P., and was presented with his Turkish Crimea medal by the Ottoman Ambassador, H.H. Prince Tewfik. The old man was then given a tour of the House of Commons and afternoon tea. A photograph from circa 1920 shows Hetheridge wearing all three of his medals. Hetheridge lived in the same house in Southsea for over 50 years and died there on 31 March 1931, buried in the Highland Road Cemetery. It was widely reported in the local press and elsewhere that he was the last survivor of the Royal Marine force which had served ‘before Sebastopol’ 76 years earlier.

Sold with copied research including obituary with photograph from The Globe and Laurel, 1931 (reproduced from Portsmouth Evening News), various medal roll extracts and service details, mostly copied to disc.