Obverse, Sultan Abdul Mejid's royal cipher with a laurel wreath around |
Reverse, a cannon and a mortar left and right before the four standards of the Crimean Allies |
The readiness of Great Britain and France, and also Sardinia whose contribution is often forgotten, to aid the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War, was recognised by Sultan Abdul Mejid I with the issue of a medal for all the troops of all nations involved, struck to a slightly different design for each country.
The majority of the medals for British troops were however lost with their ship during carriage to Britain in 1860, and so British troops often obtained themselves copies of the Sardinian or the French issue instead. This is one of the genuine British issue, with the Union Jack given pride of place in the field.
This medal was awarded to Colonel Lawrence Fyler of the 12th Lancers, whose medal group has come entire into the Watson Collection and shows a career spent in India and the East fighting for the Crown from the 1830s to the 1850s.
This medal is attached to two others and the catalogue of the Watson Collection considers it as part of Group 8 (this comprising two assemblages and two loose medals). For provenance of the group see those entries.