Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An important senior N.C.O.’s ‘Scots Greys’ Waterloo medal awarded to Troop Sergeant Major William Perrie, 2nd Dragoons

Waterloo 1815 (Trp. Serj. Maj. Wm. Perrie, 2nd or R.N. Brit. Reg. Dra.) fitted with contemporary replacement silver clip and bar suspension, the clip obscuring the last letter of unit, good old ribbon fitted with buttonhole, obverse with contact pitting from wear with uniform, better than good fine and still an attractive medal £6,000-£8,000

William Perrie was born at Kilmarnock, Ayrshir, on 26 December 1773, and enlisted into the 2nd Dragoons on 25 August 1794, aged 18, weaver by trade. At Waterloo he was Troop Sergeant Major of Captain Barnard’s No. 1 Troop which sustained particularly heavy casualties including Barnard himself, killed whilst leading the right squadron of the regiment. Perrie was one of six Troop Sergeant Majors in the regiment, one for each Troop; his being the ‘senior’ Troop and therefore included on the strength were the Regimental Sergeant Major (William Crawford), the Paymaster Sergeant, Armourer Sergeant and Saddler Sergeant. Of the six Troop Sergeant Majors, the medals of only two are known to be extant, William Perrie and James Russell; that to the regimental Sergeant Major is not known to have survived, making these two Troops Sergeant Majors the most senior N.C.O.’s available to collectors.

Perrie was appointed Regimental Quarter Master in the Scots Greys on 7 December 1826, and retired on half-pay on 24 December 1835. He had married Ann Hubbard at Loughborough on 17 November 1798, and retired to live with her at Amble in the Parish of Warkworth, Northumberland, where it is understood that he opened a pub called the ‘Waterloo’, later called ‘Waterloo Hotel’. Perrie died at Amble on 23 July 1846, aged 60 years. His son, also William, carried on as the publican of the ‘Waterloo”.

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