Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Military General Service 1793-1814, 12 clasps, Vimiera, Corunna, Busaco, Fuentes D’Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, St. Sebastian, Nivelle, Nive (Bernard Timmins, 43rd Foot) extremely fine £2,800-£3,200

Provenance: Glendining’s, March 1959 (£70, a remarkable price at that time); Baldwin 1970.

Clasp for Busaco not credited in Foster’s roll and signs of possible work to the two lower clasp carriages.

Only 1 officer, 2 medical officers, 3 N.C.Os. and 19 men of the 43rd received the clasp for St Sebastian. Only a small portion of the Light Division, all volunteers, took part in the actual storming of the breach of St Sebastian on 31 July 1813. Only 7 medals with 12 clasps to the 43rd Foot, including 2 with this combination.

Bernard Timmins was born in the Parish of Orney, County Tyrone, and enlisted into the 43rd Foot at Strabane, County Tyrone, on 7 June 1807, aged 18. He was discharged from the 43rd after 11 years 179 days service on 2 December 1818, in consequence of ‘possessing a bad habit of body which is chiefly attributable to long and severe services in the Peninsula; received a gun shot wound of the left arm at the Siege of Badajoz 6th April 1812, and another at the Siege of St Sebastian 31st August 1813.’

Timmins saw further service in the 9th Royal Veteran Battalion, from which he was finally discharged at Dublin on 24 March 1821. Sold with copied discharge papers.