Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Order of the Bath Chapel Stall Plate of Major-General David Stewart of Garth, C.B., 42nd Royal Highlanders, severely wounded at Alexandria in 1801, recipient of the Maida Gold Medal, and author of the first comprehensive history of the Highland Regiments

The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, C.B. (Military) Chapel Stall Plate (David Stewart Esquire, Colonel in the Army, Companion of the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath, Nominated 4th June 1815) extremely fine £1000-1200

David Stewart was appointed Ensign in the 42nd Highlanders in August 1787 and served with the regiment in Flanders in 1794, and went with it to the West Indies in October 1795. He took part in the capture of St Lucia and St Vincent, and in the prolonged bush-fighting with the Caribs. He was also in the unsuccessful expedition against Porto Rico in 1797.

Stewart returned to England with his regiment, was in garrison at Gibraltar, and embarked there with the expedition for the recovery on Minorca in November 1798. But he was taken prisoner at sea and was detained for five months in Spain before he was exchanged. He went to Egypt with Abercromby’s expedition and was severely wounded at the battle of Alexandria on 21 March 1801. Of the regiment’s behaviour at Alexandria, Mr Fortescue says that ‘the Forty-second stands pre-eminent for a gallantry and steadfastness which would be difficult to match in the history of any army’. Stewart’s wounds were so severe that he was unable to take any further part in the campaign.

He obtained a Majority in the 78th Highlanders in April 1804, by raising recruits for the 2nd battalion which was then being formed, a thing which his popularity in the highlands made easy to him. He went with the 2nd battalion to the Mediterranean in September 1805, and shared in the descent on Calabria. At the battle of Maida on 4 July 1806, he commanded a battalion of light companies, and was again severely wounded. He received the Gold Medal for his services at Maida and received a clasp to it for the capture of Guadaloupe in 1810, where he commanded the Royal West India Rangers. He was promoted to Colonel in the Army in June 1814 and made a companion of the Bath in June 1815, in which year he was placed on half-pay. In 1817 he began work on a history of the Highland Regiments which developed into the ‘Sketches of the Character, Manners, and Present State of the Highlanders of Scotland; with details of the Military Service of the Highland Regiments,’ which was published in two volumes at Edinburgh in 1822. This book, ‘whose excellence shines forth on every page’, has been the foundation of all subsequent works on the clans. Stewart was promoted to Major-General in May 1825, and in 1829 he went out to St Lucia as Governor. The island was then very unhealthy, and on the 18th December, he died there.