Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Military General Service 1793-1814, 1 clasp, Ciudad Rodrigo (Thos. Strickleton, 23rd Foot) minor edge bruising, otherwise good very fine and a rare single clasp £1600-1800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals formed by the late Arnold Jackson.

View
Collection

Only 54 single-clasp medals for Ciudad Rodrigo issued, this being unique to the 23rd Foot.

Thomas Strickleton was born at Preston, Lancashire, and served in the 4th Light Dragoons from 10 August 1800 to 24 May 1802. He attested for the 23rd Foot at Hull on 4 April 1809, then a weaver aged 33 years, and served in Brown’s Company at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. He must have been wounded or fallen sick not to have qualified for any further clasps, but he was later present with No. 2 Company at Waterloo. He was discharged on 24 May 1816.

In November 1852 Strickleton was one of about 100 veterans of the Peninsula and Waterloo who attended the dinner held at Shelley’s Arms, Preston, in honour of the Duke of Wellington, on the occasion of his funeral.

Strickleton attended an ‘Examination of Invalid Soldiers’ at Chelsea Hospital on 5 June 1855, whereupon he was recommended for a special pension on account of wounds received in the Peninsula, in his case ‘Discharged in the year 1814 (sic), bayonet wound in the head at Cambray, his body and legs deformed by a plague in Holland’.

Sold with an original broadsheet recording the Shelley Arms memorial dinner and listing the veterans present, and original letter from the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, granting ‘Thos. Strickleton 4th Dragoons’ a pension for wounds of 6 pence per diem, dated 9 June 1855.