Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Staff Commander Robert Studwell, Royal Navy

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Navarino (Robert Studwell, Volr.); Baltic 1854-55, unnamed as issued, nearly extremely fine (2) £1,800-£2,200

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

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Robert Studwell was a Volunteer 2nd Class in H.M.S. Asia at the battle of Navarino (Medal). He was Second Master in charge of Savage on the north coast of Spain, 1836-40. He was appointed Master on 20 August 1840 [this rank later re-designated as Navigating Lieutenant] and was subsequently passed in pilotage for a line-of-battle ship. He was Master of Firebrand in the action of Obligado, the passage of San Lorenzo, and in repeated boat service actions in the Parana River, 1845-46. He was Master of the Caesar in the Baltic in 1854. Studwell was promoted to Staff Commander on reserved half-pay on 11 June 1863, and is still listed in the Navy List for 1883.

Operations in the Parana River 1845-46

Studwell was a participant in the little-known naval operations up the Parana River in the Argentine Republic during 1845 and 1846, where an Anglo-French Squadron was formed to combat the outrages of the dictator, Don Juan Manuel de Rosas. In November 1845, passage up the the Parana River was blocked (by Rosas) to commercial passage by a boom of twenty-four hulks, chained together, stretching half a mile from side to side, with troops and heavy guns lining both banks of the river. Here, at Punta Obligado, on 20 November the British endeavours, in a boat action, led to the chains being cut and the boom broken.

Furthermore, parties of seamen and marines were landed who took the Argentine batteries and drove off the enemy troops. The British Squadron consisted of H.M. Ships Gorgon (Captain James Hotham), Firebrand (Captain James Hope), Philomel (Commander B. J. Sulivan), Comus (Commander T. S. Thompson), Dolphin (Lieut. & Commander R. J. T. Levigne), and the one-gun schooner Fanny (Lieutenant Astley Cooper Key). Casualties amounted to nine men killed and 27 wounded in this action but no medals were ever given beyond a K.C.B. for Hotham and a C.B. for Hope. Even as late as March 1870 the lack of medallic rewards still rankled with a group of survivors, who asked the Admiralty of a medal could be granted for their former services, a request which their Lordships regretted they could not comply.