Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 2 clasps, Egypt, Algiers (Thos. Bishop.) very fine £1,800-£2,200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Napoleonic-Era Campaign Medals.

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Collection

McKenzie Collection 1873; Cheylesmore Collection, Glendining’s, July 1930; Magor Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, July 2003.

Thomas Bishop is confirmed as an Ordinary Seaman aboard H.M.S. Modeste in the operations off the coast of Egypt, March to September 1801, and as an Able Seaman aboard H.M.S. Albion at Algiers. One other man of this name is shown on the roll for Syria.

Thomas Bishop was born in Birmingham c.1781 and joined the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class on 20 May 1800 aboard H.M.S. Zealand. He is next traced as being on board H.M.S. Modeste, still rated as Boy 2nd Class but promoted to Landsman on 26 November 1800, and to Ordinary Seaman on 1 September 1801. During this period in Modeste he took part in the Egypt operations. He was paid off from Modeste on 10 April 1802, and probably left the Navy due to the reductions after the Treaty of Amiens. Bishop entered the Albion on 4 July 1816, rated as an Able Seaman, serving on board until paid off at Portsmouth on 21 May 1819. He was present in this ship at the bombardment of Algiers in August 1816. He is next traced as a pensioner with Greenwich Hospital, which he joined on 5 October 1843, aged 62. Their records show that he received a pension of £16 a year, was a widower from 1843, had never been wounded, and worked as a tobacconist prior to joining the hospital. Thomas Bishop died at Greenwich Hospital on 10 June 1860.

Sold with copied entries from ship’s muster tables and detailed research by Captain K. J. Douglas-Morris.