Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Algiers (T. S. Beauchant, 1st Lieut. R.M.) very neat engraved correction to ‘ant, 1st’, otherwise lightly toned, extremely fine £3,000-£4,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals formed by the late Ron Wright.

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Theophilus Samuel Beauchant was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Marines on 9 November 1805, and was promoted to 1st Lieutenant on 22 September 1810. He served as a 1st Lieutenant Royal Marines aboard H.M.S. Impregnable at the battle of Algiers in 1816, although the medal rolls incorrectly give his rank as 2nd Lieutenant in which rank it was originally issued.

Originally assigned to 137 Company in the Plymouth Division, Beauchant transferred to 3 Royal Marine Artillery Company, Plymouth Division, on 1 February 1806. He was present at the second battle of Copenhagen, 2-7 September 1807, and received an injury there which left him deaf for life. Individual ships and stations are not recorded in the Navy lists at this time so it is not possible to say which particular vessel he was serving in at Copenhagen. However, R.M.A. parties were present in H.M. Ships Fury, Zebra, Aetna, Thunder and Vesuvius.

Sometime in 1809, he was ‘employed on Special Service propaganda work on the French coast, under instructions from Commodore Owen of the Clyde frigate.’ He had been engaged, as he himself mentions in a personal statement of services sent into the Admiralty [now filed among the Secretary’s “In-Letters” at The National Archives] ‘for two months as a Volunteer in assisting to disseminate a knowledge of the affairs of Spain in France...’

Beauchant commanded the R.M.A. detachment of H.M.S. Hound in the Scheldt expedition of July-December 1809, and was afterwards sent to Cadiz with H.M.S. Hound to assist in the defence of that city, arriving there on 4 April 1810. He took part in the shelling of Forts San José and San Luis, 12-21 April, and was also present at the attack on the French fleet lying off Point St Mary on 23 November 1810. A ‘Boat Service’ clasp was authorised for this latter action but Beauchant had died before he was able to claim it. He was in action again on 2, 11, 13 and 31 of December 1810, and 5-6 March 1811. H.M.S. Hound remained at Cadiz until September 1812.

He was placed in charge of training a detachment of R.M.A. from Chatham, at Woolwich in April-August 1813. In April 1814 he sailed to America in command of the R.M.A. detachment aboard H.M.S. Erebus, and while she was at Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was lent to H.M.S. Superb as a gunnery instructor. Beauchant was later to publish a book titled The Naval Gunner, essentially a highly technical account about ‘conducting the rocket service afloat, remarks on bomb vessels, fire ships etc.’, but with occasional reference to his personal services:

‘Nor must it be supposed that the author formed his opinion on theory alone. On the coast of America, the crew of the Superb 74, under the flag of Sir Henry Hotham, was brought to such a state of perfection in gunnery by the author, as few or none of His Majesty’s ships could boast of; and its apparent effect on the sailors was confidence in themselves, and an anxious wish to try their skill upon the enemy.’

He returned to Erebus in time to take part in the Potomac expedition of 17 August to 4 September 1814, and was present at the capture of Fort Washington on 28 August 1814, and also at the action at Baltimore on 13 September 1814. He would also have been entitled to the clasp for ‘The Potomac’ had he not died before being able to claim for it.

In January 1816 he was placed in command of the R.M.A. detachment aboard H.M.S. Impregnable for the expedition to Algiers. In the battle on 27 August 1816, Impregnable suffered the greatest number of casualties of all the British ships present. A contemporary account of the hellish scenes in the ‘tween decks was penned a few days after the bombardment by Lieutenant John Whinyates, Royal Engineers, who was present throughout the day on the poop-deck of the Impregnable. In the early hours of the morning of 28 August, with the ship anchored out at sea and the night sky torn by the roar and flash of the storm, he chose to carry the lantern for Lieutenant Thophilus Beauchant, Royal Marine Artillery, who was making a round of the ship:

‘The horror of the spectacle is difficult to describe. On the middle deck the first thing we saw was eight men lying between two guns, each in the convulsed attitude in which he had expired. One man had one arm extended, the other close to his breast, both fists clenched in a boxing attitude, whilst his right leg lay by his side, having been cut in two by a cannon-ball close to the hip. Near him was another poor fellow extended on his belly, his face downwards, with his back exposed: between his shoulders was buried an 18-pound shot. Legs, arms, blood, brains and mangled bodies were strewn about in all directions. You could scarcely keep your feet from the slipperiness of the decks, wet with blood.’ (Gunfire in Barbary refers).

Beauchant was placed on ‘reserved half pay’ on 3 May 1817, and afterwards settled in Falmouth, Cornwall, where he served as Burgess of the Borough of Falmouth in September 1822-23; Alderman in August 1825; Mayor 1827-29; and Justice October 1829-30. Two entries in ‘Officers who have held the position of Mayor’ state:

‘29 Sept 1827. Mr T. S. Beauchant an officer on half pay of the marines artillery, holding a commission of lieutenant in the Cornwall militia, and latterly a wholesale brewer.
29 Sept 1828. The majority being absent, Mr Beauchant held over. He has since quitted Falmouth for America.’

Of his departure to America, as stated above, little is known. His book, The Naval Gunner Containing A Correct Method Of Disparting Any Piece Of Ordnance ... Tables Of Ranges ... Remarks On Bomb Vessels, Fire Ships ... &c, was published by Devonport & Longmans & Co., London, in 1828.

At some later point Beauchant moved to St Aubin, St Brelade, Jersey, and gives this address in his last Will and Testament, dated 20 September 1849. He died at Falmouth on 14 October 1849, the following obituary notice appearing in The West Britain & Cornwall Advertiser on 26 October:

‘Lately of Jersey Theophilus Beauchant, Esq, of Royal Marines Artillery was for many years first magistrate of Falmouth. During this period of office he materially improved acquirements; also the inhabitants are wholly indebted for the projecting of the classical school in that town, that by mismanagement, unfortunately frustrated the expectations he had nobly entertained of it being a public good. Mr Beauchant has left a widow and several children to lament their loss.’