Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The ‘West Indies’ M.G.S. medal awarded to Captain William Wood, late Paymaster of the 15th Foot, he emigrated to Tasmania with his aristocratic French wife in 1829, where they became the basis for the leading figures in G. B. Lancaster’s colourful novel, Pageant, about early Tasmania

Military General Service 1793-1814, 2 clasps, Martinique, Guadaloupe (W. Wood, Paymr. 15th Foot) minor edge nicks, otherwise nearly extremely fine and rare £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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Provenance: Naval & Military Club Collection, Artemis Auctions, July 2009; Noble Numismatics Sale 99, April 2012.

Only 4 M.G.S. medals to officers in the 15th Foot, one each with single clasps for Martinique and Guadaloupe, and two with both clasps.

William Wood was born in England on 14 June 1778, at Hastings, East Sussex. He was appointed Paymaster in the 15th Foot on 20 February 1806, and held this appointment until at least 1821 and was placed on the half-pay as Paymaster to the 44th Foot in 1824, before retiring from the Army by ‘the sale of his unattached commission’ on 16 January 1829.

Shortly after the capture of Guadaloupe in February 1810, a French ship bound from Cayenne to France, sailed into the harbour for a stopover, unaware of the British presence, and was captured without a shot being fired. Among the passengers was seventeen year old Marie Hyacinthe Genevieve de Gouges accompanied by a duenna and in the charge of Louis de Mabille-Audibert, Inspector-General des Forets. Marie was the only child of General Pierre Aubrey de Gouges, late Governor of French Guiana, who had recently died at Cayenne. Marie was admired for her beauty, goodness and graceful manners. Her aunt, the General's sister, was a maid of honour to Marie Antoinette and is buried with the other victims of the guillotine at the Chapelle Expiatoire behind the Madeleine in Paris. During a ball given by the Governor of Guadeloupe Captain Wood met the young Marie and fell madly in love with her. He swept her off her feet with his wild, passionate wooing and within about ten days they married, with one of the witnesses being Colonel Barry of ‘the Corps’.

After retiring from the Army by the sale of his commission in 1829, William Wood and his wife and five children emigrated to Van Diemen's Land under an inducement of the offer of land to retired military men. The family arrived at Hobart Town on 25 October 1829 aboard the brig Mary Anne. Captain Wood took up a grant of 2,000 acres at Snakes Bank [now Powranna] and named his property ‘Hawkridge’ after the family manor near Tiverton in Devon. He applied for a further grant of 2,000 acres and in time he increased the size of his holding to 5,400 acres and built the family home which he called ‘Woodleigh’.

Old family letters relate the captain's energetic and sometimes indiscreet opposition to the convict system which brought him into conflict with several Governors and he fought at least one duel. A Launceston newspaper report at the time stated that ‘shots were exchanged without injury to either party, whereon both felt their honour satisfied.’ The captain and his wife had two children born in Tasmania but both died in their infancy. One of his children, Louis de Gouges Wood, was a teacher and in the 1860s an active landscape artist of some renown. His water-colour, ‘Brambletye near Avoca’, is in the collection of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania. In an article in The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday, July 16, 1934 it states that certain information had been discovered that revealed the true life characters who were in fact leading figures of 'Pageant', G. B. Lancaster’s colourful novel of early Tasmania. The ‘Captain Comyn’ of the novel was Captain William Wood and his wife Marie is credited with being the basis for the French lady.

Captain Wood died at the family home, Woodleigh, in 1864 at the age of 86. He and his wife, who also died in 1864, are interred in a vault in the English Cemetery at Perth, Tasmania. Sold with research including photographs of original oil paintings of both Captain Wood and his wife, together with a photograph of their vault.