Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Military General Service 1793-1814, 3 clasps, St. Sebastian, Nivelle, Nive (John Burke, Corpl. 1st Foot Gds.) contact marks and light edge bruising from Waterloo medal, otherwise toned, nearly very fine £1200-1500

Provenance: Sotheby, February 1912; Needes Collection 1940; Glendining’s, March 1969.

John Burke was born in Carterland, County Kerry, and enlisted into the 1st Foot Guards at Cork on 5 August 1812, a shoemaker by trade, aged 24, a volunteer from the Kerry Militia. He was present at Waterloo in Lieutenant-Colonel D’Oyly’s company of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Foot Guards, and was discharged to pension on 16 September 1829, his conduct being described as ‘indifferent’. In 1865 he was receiving his pension at Quebec, Montreal.

Burke was tried by a General Regimental Court Martial at the Tower of London on 17 November 1823, on four charges:

Firstly: For being in Liquor when for the Bank Piquet on the afternoon of Friday the seventh day of November 1823.

Secondly: For highly unsoldierly and mutinous conduct in fixing his bayonet and coming to the charge with it on Serjeant Andrew McFarlane, Serjeant in waiting of Lt Col Higginson’s company and threatening to run him through the body if he approached him, the prisoner, John Burke.

Thirdly: For highly unsoldierly and mutinous conduct in refusing to go to the Guard Room when ordered by Drill Serjeant Charles Graves of Lt Col Higginson’s company, coming to the charge on the said Drill Serjeant Charles Graves with his bayonet fixed and defying the said Drill Serjeant Charles Graves to confine him declaring that he would not be confined but by an officer.

Fourthly: For resisting the escort sent from the Main Guard to secure him, the prisoner, John Burke, and threatening to use violence towards them.

John Burke was sentenced to seven hundred lashes, which sentence, it is noted, was both approved and carried out.

Sold with copied discharge papers and extracts from The Men of the 1st Foot Guards at Waterloo and Beyond by Barbara J. Chambers.