Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Trafalgar (William Wild.) clasp facing slightly buckled on left-hand side, otherwise nearly extremely fine £5,000-£7,000

Glendining’s, November 1987.

William Wild is confirmed on the roll as a Private, Royal Marines aboard H.M.S. Temeraire (Captain E. Harvey) during the major fleet action off Cape Trafalgar between the British fleet under the command of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson and the Franco-Spanish fleet under the command of Vice-Admiral P. C. de Villeneuve, on 21 October 1805. He is the only man with these names on the roll.

‘At Trafalgar she was the second ship in the weather line, closely following the Victory, and her share in the action was particularly brilliant. When the Victory was engaged with the Redoutable, the Temeraire came up to starboard of the French 74, and also engaged her. This was after Nelson had fallen, and the first broadside of the Temeraire checked an attempt at boarding the Victory which the French were about to make. The fight of the little two-decker against the pair of three-deckers was heroic. The top-men of the Redoutable flung down hand-grenades and fire-balls till they set fire to the deck, larboard forechains, starboard foreshrouds and foresail; one fire-ball rolled into the magazine among the powder barrels, and only the presence of mind of a master-at-arms saved the Temeraire from the fate of the Orient at the battle of the Nile. In the mean time a new antagonist, the French 80-gun ship Fougueux had come up on the starboard quarter of the Temeraire, which had been suffering also from the fire of the Neptune. She looked nothing but a cripple, and the Fougueux came up determined to board her. When less than fifty yards separated the vessels, the starboard broadside of the Temeraire crashed into the French ship, sweeping her rigging and upper works bare, leaving her whole side a mass of splinters. She drove into the Temeraire, was lashed fast, and twenty-eight men under Lieut. T. F. Kennedy sprang on to her deck—where the gallant French captain lay mortally wounded—and fought their way to the stump of the mainmast. In ten minutes they had the British colours hoisted, and the Fougueux—which unfortunately foundered in the subsequent gale, with the prize crew on board—was a prize of war to the Temeraire, which had also the Victory’s prize, the Redoutable, lashed to her. “Nothing could be finer,” wrote Lord Collingwood, than her conduct in the fight — “I have no words in which I can sufficiently express my admiration of it.” As the smoke of the battle cleared away she was seen lying dismantled and temporarily helpless, but with an enemy’s ship, equally helpless, a prize on each side of her. Her losses amounted to 121 killed and wounded, including 9 officers, while 43 of her crew perished in the prizes after the battle. She had her main top-mast, the head of her mizen-mast, her foreyard, and her fore and main topsail yards shot away; her fore and main-masts were so badly wounded as to be unfit to carry sail; while her bowsprit was shot through in several places. Her rigging of every sort was cut to pieces, and she was otherwise seriously damaged.’ (The Trafalgar Roll by Colonel R. H. Mackenzie refers)

Wild was born in Amport, Hampshire. He enlisted in the Portsmouth Division of the Royal Marines, and his subsequent service included with H.M. Ships Goliath, Temeraire and Canada.

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