Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Troop Sergeant-Major John Coombs, 15th Hussars, who ‘distinguished himself as a brave soldier in action’ and was afterwards present with his regiment at the ‘Peterloo Massacre’ in Manchester in 1819

Military General Service 1793-1814, 1 clasp, Toulouse (J. Coombs, Tp. Serjt. Major, 15th Hussars.); Waterloo 1815 (John Coombs, 15th or King’s Reg. Hussars) fitted with steel clip and contemporary silver bar suspension, edge bruising and contact marks, therefore good fine, the first very fine (2) £3,200-£3,600

John Coombs was born at Romsey, Hampshire, and attested for the 15th Hussars at Guildford on 18 January 1810, aged nineteen, a baker by trade. He was promoted to Corporal in July 1813 but reduced to Private in December 1814 before becoming Corporal again in June 1816. He was further promoted to Sergeant in April 1824 and to Troop Sergeant-Major in September 1828, in which rank he was discharged at Dublin on 16 October 1834, having been found unfit for service from severe rheumatism and being worn out.

His discharge papers state that he served ‘nearly five months in France in 1814 and was present at the Battle of Toulouse; about a year in the Netherlands and France in 1815 & 16, was at Waterloo’. His papers also note that he ‘distinguished himself as a brave soldier in action’. He was stationed at Manchester in 1819 at the time of the Peterloo Massacre on 16 August, when the 15th Hussars together with the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry charged a rally of some 60,000 protesters, resulting in ‘11 deaths and over 500 severe injuries’. Sold with copied discharge papers and full muster details.

Sold with a copy of Joyce Marlow’s book ‘The Peterloo Massacre’