The John Goddard Collection of Important Naval Medals and Nelson Letters

The Burma campaign medal awarded to Chief Officer William Wright, for service aboard the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company’s steamer Palow

India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Burma 1885-7 (Chief Officer W. Wright I.F. Co’s Str. “Palow”) nearly extremely fine £300-350

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The John Goddard Collection of Important Naval Medals and Nelson Letters.

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Provenance: Captain K. J. Douglas-Morris Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, February 1997.

The Palow was built at Dumbarton in 1879, and registered in Glasgow in the name of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company with the Official Number 82262. She was a single funnelled paddle steamer of shallow draught. Her dimensions were length 160 feet, breadth 26 feet, draught 7.5 feet with a gross tonnage 244 tons. She remained in the service until 1930 when she was broken up at Dalla. At the time of the military operations in Burma during 1885-87 she was Commanded by Captain W. N. Beckett, with Chief Officer Wright and two engineers as her British Officer complement. Her main role in the upper Burma campaign was in support of the operations of the Army and the Naval Brigade in the area of the junction of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin Rivers during the period November 1885 to January 1887. A photograph of Palow appears in the book ‘The Irrawaddy Flotilla Company’, Maritime Monographs & Reports No.7, published by the National Maritime Museum, London, in 1973.

William Wright, who was born in 1862 at Crossmyloof, Lanarkshire, was granted a 2nd Mate's Certificate for Foreign Voyages at Glasgow on 1 June 1880 (Certificate No. 08371). He had a number of such voyages until being wrecked on the Hyswayne on 24 March 1883. As a result, he was granted a replacement certificate at Glasgow (012741) on 14 May 1883. He went that year to Australia as 1st Mate on the Koranni. His last recorded voyage was to the West Indies in 1884 as 2nd Mate on the Nishdale. He joined the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company in 1885 and retired as a Captain in 1897.