Orders, Decorations and Medals

Ashantee 1873-74, no clasp (Navg. Lt. A. W. Miller, R.N., H.M.S. Amethyst, 73-74), refixed suspension claw, light contact marks and possible traces of old mounting to edge, very fine £300-350

Andrew William Miller, who was born in January 1841, entered the Royal Navy as a Master’s Assistant aboard H.M.S. Belleisle in November 1855, in which vessel he served in the Black Sea until removing to the Amethyst in July 1856. According to Lean’s Navy List, he was subsequently present ‘at the blockade of Canton River and Macao Reach, in the White Cloud Mountain expedition and other operations 1856-58 (China Medal)’; so, too, as a 2nd Master, ‘at the blockade of Mazatlan in 1859 and in the Donegal in the Gulf of Mexico during operations in conjunction with the French and Spanish Fleets in 1862’.

Having then gained advancement to Navigating Lieutenant in March 1866, Miller served in a similar capacity in the Amethyst from July 1873 to June 1878, which period saw him employed on the Gold Coast during the Ashantee War 1873-74, and present at the engagement with the Peruvian rebel turret-ship Huascar off Ylo in May 1877, for which latter action he was mentioned in despatches (Lean’s Navy List refers). Advanced to Staff Captain in May 1894, Miller, the author of The Straits of Magellan, and Eastern Shores of the Pacific Ocean, was placed on the Retired List in July 1896, and died in December 1903.