Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Crimea 1854-56, 4 clasps, Alma, Balaklava, Inkermann, Sebastopol (Thos. Spenceer. Grenadier Gds.) officially impressed naming, two edge bruises, otherwise toned, very fine £400-£500

Thomas Spencer was born at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in December 1815, and was a paper stainer by trade. He attested for the Grenadier Guards at Peterborough on 28 April 1837, aged 21 years 5 months. In the period up to May 1849 he was tried and convicted for desertion on five occasions, being imprisoned for varying lengths of time and marked with the letter “D”. He departed with his regiment for the Crimea on 22 February 1854, and served throughout the campaign until he was invalided home in March 1855 suffering from ‘fever and dysentery contracted when on service in the Crimea.’ He was one of the 500 or so officers and men, including 32 from the Grenadiers, many of them invalids, wounded or ill who were presented with their Crimea medals personally by Queen Victoria in St James’s Park on 18 May 1855. He was finally discharged in London on 28 October 1856.

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