A Choice Collection of Medals and other items to the 24th Foot (South Wales Borderers)

The Peninsula War Medal awarded to Lieutenant General John ‘Kotiya’ Fraser, Colonel of the 37th Foot, late 24th Foot and Ceylon Light Infantry, who distinguished himself at the siege of Burgos, where he led a Forlorn Hope on 4th October 1813

Military General Service 1793-1814, 4 clasps, Busaco, Fuentes D’Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca (J. Fraser, Capt. 24th Foot) together with named card box of issue with additional contemporary notes in ink ‘Never a Captain in the 24th Regt. He was Lieutenant & Commanding his Light Company of the 24th Regt. in all these actions & promoted to Capt. in the Cey. Regt. January 1813 for his services at Burgos, 4 October 1812’, extremely fine £2000-2500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Choice Collection of Medals and other items to the 24th Foot (South Wales Borderers).

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John Fraser was born in 1790 and served as a Lieutenant in the Royal East Middlesex Militia 1807-09. He was gazetted Ensign in the 24th Foot on 19 April 1809 and served in the Peninsula with the 24th Foot from June 1809 to June 1813, being promoted to Lieutenant in September 1811. He was present at the action of Foz d’Arouce, battles of Busaco and Fuentes D’Onor, the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, covering the siege of Badajoz, battle of Salamanca, capture of Madrid, and siege of Burgos.

The first assault of Burgos took place at nightfall on the 19th September 1812, and Lieutenant Fraser was employed with the Light Company of the 24th Foot, under the command of Major Hon. E. C. Cocks of the 79th Regiment. They were directed to attack the rear of the Horn Work but the attack was unsuccessful and the 24th lost in this affair five rank and file killed and sixteen wounded. Lieutenant Fraser, however, ‘had the good fortune to lead the few men who succeeded in entering that Work by the Gorge.’

On the afternoon of the 4th October, the 2nd Battalion 24th Foot, were marched into the trenches, where they were formed into two storming parties. One hundred and forty men were detailed for the assault on the main breach, led by Lieutenant Stephen Holmes, whilst the second party, comprising 58 men led by Lieutenant Fraser, were detailed to assault the breach expected to be made by the mine. The attack was to be delivered in daylight and many officers of other regiments managed to find their way to the hill to witness the assault, Wellington himself being present on San Miguel.

At 5 p.m. the signal for the explosion was given by Colonel Jones, the engineer in charge, afterwards the historian of Wellington’s sieges. He was hit in the act of giving the signal, but the mine went off and simultaneously the 24th dashed forward. The party who made for the new breach made by the mine, led by Lieutenant John Fraser, were there so soon that many were hit by falling stones, and all were covered by dust and fragments. This did not stop them, and before the surprised enemy could offer much resistance they were up and over the breach. Many defenders had been killed and directly Captain Lepper and the supports joined Lieutenant Fraser’s stormers the breach was secured and the attackers started to consolidate. The main body had a harder task: they had farther to go and here the defenders had not been shaken by the explosion. But, headed by Lieutenant Holmes, the 24th dashed forward and though received with a hot fire swarmed up the breach, where a savage struggle followed.

The 24th maintained themselves in the captured position until nightfall, when they were relieved. On reaching their camp they found it thronged with officers who had come to offer their congratulations. Carried out in full view of a large concourse, the storm had caught the imagination of the army and won the battalion great renown. The storm had cost the 24th twelve men killed, and two officers, Coote and Stack, and 56 men wounded. Wellington himself wrote warmly of the Twenty-Fourth, whose conduct he described to Lord Bathurst as ‘highly praisworthy’, while he wrote a special letter to the Duke of York to recommend to H.R.H.’s ‘favour and protection’ Captain Hedderwick and Lieutenants Holmes and Fraser, who had so greatly distinguished themselves.

On the recommendation of Lord Wellington, Fraser was promoted to Captain in the 1st Ceylon Light Infantry, whilst Holmes went as Captain to the 8th West India Regiment, both promotions gained in recognition of their gallant services at Burgos. At the end of June 1813, Captain Fraser returned from Spain to England and was admitted to the Senior Department of the Royal Military College at Farnham, where he studied for two years and obtained a First Certificate of Qualification. On arrival in Ceylon in 1816 he was placed on the General Staff by Sir Robert Brownrigg as his A.D.C., and subsequently served on the Staff as Acting Deputy Assistant Quarter Master General, in which position he served throughout the whole of the Kandian War in 1817 and 1818.

During the latter operations he commanded an expedition into Kotmale in August 1818 and was in pursuit of Pilame Talawwa in the Kurunegala and Nuwarakalawiya districts, undertaking several arduous and lengthy marches through difficult country in remarkable time. For his services he was rewarded with a Brevet Majority in October 1818, and earned the sobriquet of “Kotiya Fraser” from the Kandian people. Kotiya is Sinhalese for Tiger, and the sobriquet refers to Fraser’s severity in the suppression of the rebellion. Loss of health from exposure to the climate of Ceylon compelled him to visit the Cape of Good Hope in the spring of 1821. Whilst at the Cape he purchased a regimental Majority in the 1st Ceylon Regiment for £1100, and returned to Ceylon take part in operations, during 1822, to put down another potential uprising by a new pretender to the Kandian throne. This was successfully achieved by Fraser, with the capture of the pretender and several of his ill-advised adherents.

Fraser remained in Ceylon for the rest of his life, where he engaged in coffee planting and bought land extensively in the neighbourhood of Kandy, and “Fraser Lodge” was built at great expense and occupied by himself and his wife. He is well known, and perhaps best remembered, in connection with the satinwood bridge that for many years spanned the Mahaweli-ganga at Peradeniya, and was one of the sights of Ceylon. Designed and set up under his superintendence during 1832-33, the span was 205 feet with a single arch made entirely of satinwodd without a nail or bolt in it. It lasted until 1905 when it was replaced with an iron bridge, a model of the original one being placed on display in the South Kensington Museum. He died a Lieutenant General and Colonel of the 37th Regiment, aged 72 years, at Kandy, on 29th May 1862 and was buried at the Old Garrison Cemetery at Kandy. Sold with further research.