Orders, Decorations and Medals

Three: Captain Henry G. C. Burningham, The Buffs

Crimea 1854-56, 1 clasp, Sebastopol (Capt., The Buffs) contemporary engraved naming; Order of the Medjidie, 5th class breast badge, silver, gold and enamel; Turkish Crimea 1855, Sardinian issue, officer’s pattern by ‘J.B.’, together with three companion miniature medals, the Crimea inscribed on the edge (Capt., The Buffs. 30th Novr. 1855); with a set of three continental sized miniature medals mounted on a triple ribbon brooch, three ribbon brooches, two small grenade badges and three regimental buttons, all medals and miniatures fitted with silver ribbon buckles and the whole contained in a (damaged) contemporary display case, very fine and better (17) £900-1100

Ex R. F. Brett Collection, D.N.W. 17 September 1999.

On the night of 31st August (1855) Captain Ross, while on patrol with Lieutenant Burningham, Sergeant McCabe and a small party of men, encountered a Russian picquet which opened fire. Ross was hit seven times and taken prisoner, subsequently dying of his wounds. Sergeant McCabe, mortally wounded, was carried back under a heavy fire to the trenches by Private Lynch who, for his gallant action, was promoted Corporal and awarded the Meritorious Service Medal with an annuity of £5. The rest of the patrol was unhurt, but Burningham was wounded later in the night by a piece of shell.

Henry George Charles Burningham later transferred to the 58th Regiment, becoming Major in May 1862.