Naval Medals from the Collection of the Late Jason Pilalas

The outstanding group of five awarded to The Reverend Edward A. Williams, Chaplain of the Pearl in the Indian Mutiny, being frequently mentioned in despatches; he was author of ‘The Cruise of the Pearl round the World, with an account of the operations of the Naval Brigade in India’, published in 1859

Baltic 1854, unnamed as issued; Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Rev. Edwd. A. Williams, Chaplain. Pearl.); Jubilee 1887 with bar 1897; Coronation 1902; Coronation 1911, light contact marks to the first two, otherwise good very fine and better (5) £4,000-£5,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Naval Medals from the Collection of the Late Jason Pilalas.

View
Collection

Douglas-Morris Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, October 1996.

Edward Adams Williams was born on 26 March 1826, the second son of Henry Williams of Glasthule, Co Dublin, whose ancestor settled at Rath Kool when William III carried on a successful campaign in Ireland. His mother, née Esther McClure, was a descendant of two Huguenot families, de la Cherois and Crommeline, who were invited by William III to settle in County Antrim and improve the damask manufactures. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1848, obtaining the Divinity Testimonial. Ordained by the Bishop of Worcester and subsequently, in 1849, given the curacy of Lye, Worcestershire. He joined the Royal Navy when appointed as the Chaplain of H.M.S. St George on 3 March 1854, seeing service in the Baltic campaign of 1854. He received the additional rank of Naval Instructor on 25 April 1855, and a month later was re-appointed to H.M.S Hawke as her "Chaplain & Naval Instructor", and was present at the attack on the forts in the Gulf of Riga during 1855, earning the Baltic Medal.

He was appointed as the ship's Chaplain to H.M.S. Pearl on 3 May l856, and served the whole time ashore with Pearl’s Naval Brigade prior to being ‘paid off’ on 15 January 1859. From 27 November 1857 Pearl’s Naval Brigade became the only wholly European manned part of the Sarun Field Force. The Reverend Williams was Mentioned in Despatches on the following occasions: by Captain E. S. Sotheby, R.N., in letters dated 28 December 1857, 1st March, 9th March and 29th April 1858, and also by Colonel F. Rowcroft, Commanding Sarun Field Force, on 22nd February and 6th March 1858.

He subsequently served aboard H.M. Ships Royal Adelaide, Reserve Depot Ship, Devonport (1860-62), and Impregnable, Training Ship, Devonport (1862-64). His final sea appointment was aboard H.M.S. Cadmus on the North America and West Indies Station commencing 28 February 1865. His last naval appointment was to H.M.S. Excellent, Gunnery Training Ship at Portsmouth, on 4 April 1868. In 1872 he was appointed Secretary of the Church Missionary Society for the Metropolitan District. From 6 March 1875 he became the Chaplain serving with the Royal Marine Artillery, Portsmouth, until 19 May 1880, when he was transferred to Sheerness Dockyard as the Chaplain for 18 months prior to serving in a similar capacity in Portsmouth Dockyard until retired in 1886 as the senior Chaplain, but not chosen to be the Chaplain of the Fleet. He received the appointment as Honorary Chaplain to Queen Victoria in 1898, retaining this similar honour to Edward VII and George V until he died at 5 Queen's Gate, Southsea on 13 April 1913 aged 87 years. He was buried at Highland Road Cemetery, Southsea on 16 April, but due to the inclement weather, with agreement of his relatives, the event was to a large extent shorn of the ceremonial element. The coffin of polished oak, covered with a Union Jack, upon which was placed his stole, war medals and coronation honours and his badge as Honorary Chaplain to the King, was borne to the cemetery on a naval field-gun carriage drawn by bluejackets. It was preceded by a Naval firing party, who fired three volleys above his grave witnessed by mourners, who included a few veterans from the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny. The ceremony ended with a Naval bugler sounding the ‘Last Post’.

Williams was author of The Cruise of the Pearl round the World, with an account of the operations of the Naval Brigade in India, published in 1859. Concerning the landing of the Naval Brigade, Williams claimed:

‘This is, I believe, the only example of the Royal Navy leaving their ships, and taking their guns seven or eight hundred miles into the interior of a great continent, to serve as soldiers, marching and counter-marching for fifteen months through extensive districts, and taking an active part in upwards of twenty actions.’

Of the thirteen chapters of the book, eleven relate to the activities of the Naval Brigade. Prior to the ship’s arrival at Calcutta on 12 August 1857, she had spent over a year after leaving England on a voyage which included the passage of the Strait of Magellan, the punishment of Peruvian revolutionaries who had plundered a British ship, and visits to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and Hong Kong, where the Pearl stayed only a month before being ordered to Calcutta.
Thereafter Williams faithfully chronicled the movement up country of the Naval Brigade and the actions which it fought under Captain Sotheby’s immediate command and in support of Indian Army units, but he had little to say concerning his own duties as chaplain:

‘After parade came daily prayers, for the men of the Naval Brigade, which lasted about ten minutes. This custom not being unusual on board a “man-of-war” was continued throughout the campaign.’

He spoke of the war as “brutalising, in which quarter was neither given nor received. No European that fell into their hands could expect anything but a most cruel death... and therefore prisoners were not taken.”

Williams was formerly Hon Editor of the Anchor Watch, and the last survivor of the founders of the Royal Naval Scripture Reader's Society, of which he had been the first Honorary Secretary when it was inaugurated at Devonport in 1860.