Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Crimea 1854-56, 2 clasps, Alma, Sebastopol (Serjt. Wm. Spooner, 46 ...) contemporarily engraved naming, contact marks and wear to naming, therefore fine £160-£200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the 46th Foot and its Successor Units.

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Only a detachment of the Regiment, 6 Officers and 225 men, made up of Sir George Cathcart’s Honour Guard and two companies of the Advance Party, were present at the Battle of the Alma on 20 September 1854, and the subsequent actions at Balaklava and Inkermann.

William Spooner was born in the Norfolk village of Hindringham in January 1817. A labourer, he attested for the 46th Regiment of Foot on 13 October 1837 and transferred from Depot to the main body of the Regiment - then stationed in the West Indies - around August 1843. Advanced Corporal, Spooner embarked for Canada East with troop ship Apollo on 7 July 1845, and was tried by District Court Martial at La Prairie on 8 June 1846 in respect of duty; placed in charge of a Regimental Picquet, he was found guilty of having allowed two subordinates to engage in too much liquor.

Returned home to England, Spooner soon faced a second Regimental Court Martial on the island of Guernsey in the autumn of 1847. This time found guilty of himself being drunk in town, he was reduced to Private. Transferred to barracks in Weedon and Windsor, he later returned to favour and was tasked with leading a recruiting party in Norwich from April to June 1854. Sent to the Crimea soon thereafter, the muster rolls note that he suffered months of sickness at Scutari; rather than succumb to disease, he recovered his health in England and later received his Crimea Medal from the hand of Queen Victoria during a parade held at Horse Guards on 18 May 1855.

Sent to Regimental Depot of the 46th Foot, Spooner was subsequently attached to the 3rd Lancashire Militia on 7 September 1858. Discharged to pension on 27 October of that year, he immediately took position on the Permanent Staff of the Lancashire Militia. The 1871 census later notes him in the service of the Royal Cheshire Militia at Chester, and twenty years later he is recorded as a Drill Hall Keeper in the city. He finally died in the Chester Cathedral district in December 1900.