Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Military General Service 1793-1814, 1 clasp, Vittoria (G. H. Dinwiddie, Clerk Comt. Dept.) contact marks, otherwise very fine £1200-1500

Gilbert Hamilton Dinwiddie served as a Clerk in the Commissariat Department in the Peninsula and was present at the battle of Vittoria. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Commissary General on 5 September 1814, and was afterwards present at the battle of Waterloo. Whilst he is confirmed as being at Waterloo by Dalton in The Waterloo Roll Call, it is noted that ‘the Commissariat officers who served at Waterloo were not granted the Waterloo medal, and none of them ever appeared in any Army List with the glorious “W” before their names, although in after years, those who had served in the Pa. had the “P” before their names in the Army Lists, and they recd. the Par. medal in 1848.’

Dinwiddie was promoted to Assistant Commissary General at Gibraltar on 28 June 1838, and to Deputy Commissary General on 5 January 1853, still serving at Gibraltar. He retired with honorary rank of Commissary General on 15 May 1859, and from that year on, until his death in 1862, the Army List notes that ‘Mr Dinwiddie served in the Peninsula, and has received the War Medal with one Clasp for Vittoria; also the Syrian Medal.’