Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Waterloo medal awarded to Lieutenant Frederick Wood, 11th Light Dragoons, who was severely wounded on 18 June 1815, and whose earlier misfortune was by tradition the cause behind the regimental nickname ‘The Cherry Pickers’, after he was captured by the French with his 10-man patrol in a cherry orchard at San Martin de Trevejo, a most remote village in Spain, in August 1811; he was a prisoner at Verdun for the remainder of the war

Waterloo 1815 (Lieut. Fred. Wood, 11th Reg. Light Dragoons.) fitted with original steel clip and ring suspension, minor marks, otherwise good very fine £6,000-£8,000

Frederick Wood was born on 25 May 1784, and was first commissioned as Cornet in the 11th Light Dragoons on 28 April 1804, and promoted to Lieutenant on 14 June 1805. He served with the 11th Light Dragoons in the Peninsula from June 1811, but, when in command of a patrol of ten men on 15 August 1811, he was surprised and captured by the French in a cherry orchard at San Martin de Trevejo, a most remote village in Spain near the border with Portugal. Tradition has it that this incident brought about the regiment’s nickname ‘The Cherry Pickers’. Lieutenant Wood was imprisoned at Verdun until the end of the war in April 1814. He served with the regiment in the Waterloo campaign and was severely wounded on 18 June 1815.

Lieutenant Wood was court-martialled in September 1816 for ‘using reproachful and provoking language to Lieutenant-Colonel Sleigh [his commanding officer] tending to upbraid him with having refused a challenge, and to excite him to fight a duel with him.’ Found guilty and sentenced by the Court to be cashiered, an intervention by H.R.H. the Prince Regent, on account of his previous good service, caused his sentence to be mitigated by his being placed on Half-pay, which duly took place on 25 March 1817. Frederick Wood died on 4 July 1861.