Waterloo 1815 (John Greaves, 2nd Batt. Grenad. Guards) fitted with original steel clip and small ring suspension, edge bruise, otherwise better than very fine £600-700

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals formed by the late John Seabrook.

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The Chelsea Hospital Admission books (W/O 120 series) record two Waterloo men of this name from the Grenadier Guards, battalions not given.

7 February 1816 - John Greaves, a cordwainer, born at Bichnell, Warwickshire, admitted to pension as a result of a fractured arm at Waterloo.

15 May 1831 - John Greaves, born at Sheffield, Yorkshire, in about 1788. He enlisted into the 1st Foot Guards at London on 16 March 1813, at the age of twenty-five. His relatively advanced age at the time of his enlistment in the Army is explained by the following statement in his discharge papers, which record that he served, ‘In the Royal Navy, on board the Caledonia in 1809 at the destruction of the French squadron in the Basque Roads, was wounded in the hand; at the storming of Flushing, the same year, on board the Sceptre; the West Indies, in 1810 on board the Neptune. In the Army, in the Peninsula in 1813, Pyrenees and the Mayor’s House at Bayonne; came home 1814; went to Holland in 1815; was at Waterloo, Peronne and Paris; at Cambray; returned home in 1817’. Greaves was finally discharged on 15 May 1831, suffering from varicose veins of both legs.