Orders, Decorations and Medals

The mounted group of six miniature dress medals attributed to Field Marshal George Charles Bingham, G.C.B., 3rd Earl of Lucan, Colonel of the 8th Hussars and the 1st Life Guards, in command of the Light and Heavy Cavalry Brigades at Balaklava and wounded in the charge, comprising: Order of the Bath (Military), gold and enamels; Crimea 1854, 1 clasp, Sebastopol; Legion of Honour, 2nd Empire, gold and enamels, lacking reverse centre; Order of the Medjidie, silver, gold and enamel; Russo-Turkish War Medal 1828-29; Order of St. Anne, gold and enamels, both central medallions badly chipped, all of continental size, suspended from gold bar with original ‘combination’ ribbon, generally very fine and rare (6) £1800-2200

Ex Dix Noonan Webb, 20 September 2002 (Lot 1144); see provenance in the same catalogue under the Field Marshal’s full-size Honours and Awards (previous Lot).

Lord George Charles Bingham was born in London in April 1800, eldest son of Richard, second Earl of Lucan. Lord Bingham was educated at Westminster, and was commissioned as Ensign in the 6th Foot in August 1816. He exchanged to the 3rd Foot Guards in December 1818, went on half-pay next day, and became Lieutenant in the 8th Foot in January 1820. He obtained a company in the 74th Foot in May 1822, and again went on half-pay, but on 20 June was gazetted to the 1st Life Guards. He was given an unattached Majority in June 1825, and on 1 December was appointed to the 17th Lancers. He succeeded to the command of that regiment as Lieutenant-Colonel in November 1826, and held it until April 1837, when he again went on half-pay. During the term of his command the regiment remained at home, but he himself witnessed the campaign of 1828 in the Balkans, being attached to the Russian staff, for which the Order of St. Anne of Russia (2nd Class) was conferred on him.

Bingham was M.P. for County Mayo from 1826 to 1830, and in June 1839, on his father’s death, he became the Earl of Lucan, and in 1840 he was elected a representative peer of Ireland. He was made Lord Lieutenant of Mayo in 1845, and for several years devoted himself mainly to the improvement of his Irish estates. He became Colonel in the army in November 1841, and Major-General in November 1851.

In 1854, when a British army was to be sent to Turkey, Lucan applied for a brigade, and on 21 February he was appointed to the command of the cavalry division. It consisted of two brigades - a Heavy Brigade under James York Scarlett and a Light Brigade under Lord Cardigan. The latter was Lucan’s brother-in-law but there was little love between them. No two men could have been less fitted to work together and there was soon friction. Cardigan complained of undue interference, and Lucan complained that his brigadier’s notions of independence were encouraged by Lord Raglan.

At the battle of the Alma Lucan was present, but the cavalry was not allowed to take an active part in it. When the army encamped in the upland before Sebastopol the cavalry division remained in the valley of Balaklava, to assist in guarding the port. On 25 October the Russians advanced on Balaklava in force and captured the redoubts in front of it, held by Turkish troops. Their cavalry pushed onward, but the main body of it, numbering at least two thousand, was soon driven back by the brilliant charge of the Heavy Brigade (nine hundred sabres) made under Lucan’s directions. Owing to some misunderstanding the Light Brigade remained inactive, instead of improving this success. The Russians retired slowly, and Raglan sent an order that the cavalry should advance and take advantage of any opportunity to recover the heights. It was added that they would be supported by infantry.

Having placed the Heavy Brigade on the slope of the heights in question, which were crowned by the captured redoubts, and having drawn up the Light Brigade across the valley to the north of them, Lucan was waiting for the approach of the infantry when a fresh order was brought to him:

‘Lord Raglan wishes the Cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop Horse Attily. may accompany. French Cavalry is on y. left. Immediate.’

From the terms of this order and the verbal explanations of its bearer, Captain Nolan, Lucan gathered that the advance was to be along the north valley, at the farther end of which the defeated Russian cavalry was now drawn up behind twelve guns, while other Russian troops occupied the heights on each side of it. Though impressed with ‘the uselessness of such an attack, and the danger attending it,’ he felt bound to obey. He sent forward the Light Brigade, and followed with two regiments of the Heavy Brigade to cover the retirement. In the course of its charge and return the Light Brigade was reduced from 673 to 195 mounted men, the two heavy regiments suffered seriously, and Lucan himself was wounded in the leg by a bullet.

Raglan said to him, when they met, “You have lost the Light Brigade!” and stated in his despatch of the 28th that ‘from some misconception of the instruction to advance the lieutenant-general considered that he was bound to attack at all hazards.’ Lucan remonstrated against this censure in a letter of 30 November, which he declined to withdraw, and in forwarding that letter to the secretary of state, Raglan found fault also with the execution of the orders which Lucan supposed himself to have received. The government decided, ‘apart from any consideration of the merits of the question,’ that Lucan should be recalled, as it was essential that the commander of the forces should be on good terms with the commander of his cavalry. He returned to England at the beginning of March 1855, and applied for a court-martial, which was refused. He vindicated himself in the House of Lords on 19 March, and his case was discussed in the Commons on the 29th.

In camp he was generally regarded as an ill-used man. Though without previous experience as a leader of cavalry in war, no longer young, and with some faults of temper, he had shown himself ‘a diligent, indefatigable commander, always in health, always at his post, always toiling to the best of his ability, and maintaining a high, undaunted, and even buoyant spirit under trials the most depressing.’ The second report of the Crimean Commissioners, Sir John McNiell and Colonel Tulloch, reflected to some extent on Lucan as regards the delay in providing shelter for the horses; but he was able to satisfy the Chelsea board of general officers that he was in no degree to blame for this. He had remonstrated against the position chosen for the cavalry camps, because the distance from the harbour endangered the supply of forage, and it was the want of forage that ruined the horses. In 1856 he published his divisional orders and correspondence, under the title ‘English Cavalry in the Army of the East.’

For his services in the Crimea he received the medal with four clasps, the Legion of Honour (3rd Class), the Medjidie (1st Class), and was made K.C.B. in July 1855. He was appointed Colonel of the 8th Hussars in November 1855. Although he had no further military employment, he was promoted to Lieutenant-General in December 1858, to General in August 1865, and to Field-Marshal in June 1887. He was transferred to the colonelcy of the 1st Life Guards in February 1865, and received the G.C.B. in June 1869. Lord Lucan died at 13 South Street, Park Lane, on 10 November 1888, and is buried at Laleham, Middlesex.