Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Gaieta 24 July 1815 (J. R. Blois, Midshipman) edge bruising and contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine £3000-3500

Confirmed on the rolls as Midshipman on board H.M.S. Berwick. A total of 89 clasps issued for this action.

Gaieta, in the Kingdom of Naples, held out in the cause of Napoleon for several weeks after the battle of Waterloo. An Austrian force under Baron de Lauer invested the place by land, and the British ships Malta, 80 guns, under Captain W. Fahie, and Berwick, 74 guns, under Captain E. Brace, blockaded it by sea. After several bombardments, the Governor having been informed by Captain Fahie of the surrender of Napoleon to Captain Maitland in the Bellerophon, the place capitulated on August 8th, the final chapter in the war against Napoleon.

John Ralph Blois was born in 1795, second son of Sir Charles Blois, Bart., of Grundisburgh and Coxfield Halls, Suffolk. He entered the Royal Navy on 1 July 1807 as First Class Volunteer aboard the Colossus 74, attached to the force in the Mediterranean, where, on the Home station, he afterwards served as Midshipman in the Royal Sovereign and San Joseph, flag-ships of Sir Edward Thornbrough and Sir Charles Cotton, Furieuse 36, Repulse 74, Bacchus, Berwick 74, Captain Edward Brace, and Impregnable 104, flag-ship of Sir Josias Rowley. He assisted, while in the Furieuse, at the capture of the island of Ponza and of the town of Via Reggio, as also in the unsuccessful attack on Leghorn, in 1813. In the Berwick, he witnessed the surrender of Gaieta in August 1815.

Having been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 6 March 1815, he was next in that capacity appointed, February 1816, to the Meander 38, in which ship he narrowly escaped shipwreck, near Orfordness, in December of that year, and in July 1818, to the Euryalus 42, stationed in the West Indies. He there assumed the acting command, December 1820, of the Nautilus 18, in which sloop he continued, until confirmed as Commander, into the Bann in March 1821. He subsequently officiated, from January 1823 until the spring of 1832, as an Inspecting-Commander in the Coast Guard, and was afterwards placed on half-pay. Commander John Blois died on 19 June 1853.