Naval General Service Medal, with bars for Anse la Barque Decr. 1809, Martinique & Guadaloupe, awarded to AB Edward Rose 1848
Image["Naval General Service Medal, 1848"]Obverse, a bust of Queen Victoria
Image["Naval General Service Medal, 1848"]Reverse, Britannia with a trident seated sideways on a seahorse
Naval General Service Medal, 1848 (Napoleonic Wars)
Just as in 1848 the extensive land campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars and the other conflicts of the pre-Victorian era were recognised by the issue of the
Military General Service Medal, those serving in the Navy at the time were recognised with the Naval General Service Medal. As with the
Army equivalent and the
East India Company's related award, many of the battles for which the medal was awarded had been fought so long ago that few if any claimants survived.
In addition, bars were awarded for many actions whose significance and size were, despite the heroism displayed by those involved, relatively minor. The result was that many of the bars were issued in tiny numbers, with some combinations all but unique, and the medals command a very high price among collectors because of this rarity and individuality. This in turn, along with the manufacture in most cases of more bars than were eventually issued, has led to the `improvement' of many common awards where recipients' names are shared with those present at `rarer' battles. The medal also shares with the
Military General Service and
Army of India Medals the oddity that Queen Victoria, whose portrait they bear, was not the ruler under whom the battles for which it was awarded were fought.
This medal was awarded to Able Bodied Seaman Edward Rose, who served aboard HMS Ringdove in an extremely busy period in which that vessel participated in two major campaigns and a lesser battle. The campaigns, which were the invasion and capture of the French Caribbean islands of
Martinique and
Guadaloupe, are more fully described on
other
pages; the battle of Anse la Barque fell between the two campaigns, before
the fall of Guadaloupe, while French traffic was still passing to the island. The Royal Navy was doing
its best to harass such traffic of course, and so it was that on 18 December 1809 a squadron, including Ringdove, under Captain S. Ballard in HMS Sceptre, fell in with a French convoy escorted by 2 frigates, which therefore took refuge under the guns of the fortress of Anse la Barque. The 9 ships of the British squadron managed however to capture both the frigates and the battery. 43 bars were awarded for this encounter in 1848.
Rose's presence on the ship at this time has been verified, and the Medals Roll confirms the award of the medal to him. Lester Watson purchased this medal from the London dealers Baldwin 1927.
