Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Military General Service 1793-1814, 1 clasp, Sahagun (E. P. Henslow, Paymaster, 15th Lt. Dgns.) attractively toned, brilliant extremely fine £3,000-£3,600

Only 19 single-clasp medals issued for Sahagun, all to the 15th Light Dragoons, including four to officers.

Edward Prentis Henslowe was appointed Paymaster to the 2nd Battalion 90th Foot on 13 November 1806, and was transferred in the same capacity to the 15th Light Dragoons on 18 August 1808. He served in the Corunna from November 1808 to January 1809 and received the Peninsula medal with clasp for Sahagun. He retired from the Army on 27 May 1813.

Of the aftermath of the Corunna campaign, the regimental history records: ‘Ill fortune attended the army to the very last. A terrible gale arose; some of the ships were driven out of their course, others were wrecked, and hundreds of men, who had survived the perils and hardships of the campaign, found a watery grave within sight of English shores. The transport conveying the staff of the Fifteenth would have been driven on shore on the Isle of Wight but for the vigilance of Paymaster Henslow, who pointed out the light at the Needles, which the master had mistaken for a star!’

Sold with original Horse Guards transmission letter, dated 1849, addressed to E. P. Henslowe Esq, late Paymr. 15 Lt. Dns, Tottenhill, Downham, Norfolk, which notes, in ink, ‘& Clasps, Sahagun & Corunna’, this pasted on board, and also with fragmentary printed record of the inscription that appears on a mural tablet in the chancel of the church of Tottenhill, Norfolk:

‘In Memory of Captain Edward-Prentis Henslowe, sometime Paymaster of the 15th K.L.D. (Hussars) and of the 90th Regiment of Foot, and of the Military Depots of Canterbury and Fort Pitt - formerly storekeeper of H.M. Dockyard, Chatham, Kent - youngest child of Sir John Henslowe, Chief Surveyor of the Royal Navy. He was born 30th August, 1772, and married 12th January, 1797, Cecilia Maria Barthélémon - who, with a daughter and four sons, survived him. He served his country and his family in England-Ireland-Spain-and France but too devotedly: and, after residing many years at Tilbury in Essex, and at Tottenhill in Norfolk, with his third son, the curate of those villages - he closed a lengthened life of pain and grief at Northfleet, in Kent, Friday, 15th May, 1857. Vivat-Valeat-in Æternum!’

And also of his wife:

‘In memory of Cecilia Maria Henslowe, widow of Captain Edward-Prentis Henslowe, and mother of Edward, Frederick, William-Henry, Frances and Francis, who survive - and of Cecilia, John, and Graham, predeceased - the only child of Francois-Hippolite Barthélémont (sic), of Bordeau, and Mary Young, his wife; Born in London, 1st September, 1767 - she inherited the property of her only cousin, John Scott, a Midshipman, last heir to the Earldom of Deloraine; but, being robbed by a Trustee, became a Ward of Chancery: and after a long life of strange vicissitude, died at Tottenhill, Norfolk, 5th December, 1859, and was buried at Northfleet, in Kent.’