Orders, Decorations & Medals - British Singles

Lot 3756    Session 15 (7.30pm Thursday)    Orders, Decorations & Medals - British Singles

Estimate $9,000
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $8,500

CRIMEA MEDAL 1854-56, - four clasps - Alma, Balaklava, Inkermann, Sebastopol. Robt, Nichol., 8th Hus. Engraved in small caps. Fitted into a display frame featuring two photos of recipient and service details, under Perspex, medal with many contact marks and edge bumps from wearing, very good and scarce.

Ex Sotheby's on 18 Feb 1970 and Chris Thomas Collection.

Robert Nichol was one of the illustrious 600 immortalised in the 1854 poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, written by Alfred Lord Tennyson and beginning,

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death,
Rode the six hundred,
'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
'Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred.

1027 Private Robert Nichol, rode in the famous 'Charge of the Light Brigade' on 25 October 1854. This has been confirmed in publications by Lummis & Wynn, L.W.Crider, T.Brighton, A.Sewell and R.Dutton.

Robert Nichol, labourer, born 11Sep1834 at Coventry, England; Enl24Oct1848; jailed in Exeter 25 - 31 Jan1854; Emb.27Apr1854 on H.T.Medora for the East; prisoner in custody 12 - 14Jul1854; hospitalised early 1855; confined 24Aug1855, Court Martialled and sentenced to 25 lashes; confined again 25Nov1855, tried by District Court Martial on 27Nov and sentenced to 50 lashes and 3 months imprisonment; 24Nov1856 invalided and discharged in Dublin; lodged a claim with the Light Brigade Relief Fund in 1891 at age 57 when he was living at 13 Charlotte Street, Newcastle; he was married to Anne and they had eight children, six boys and two girls; died 18Jun1897 and was buried two days later in Elswick Cemetery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

Robert Nichol attended the First Balaclava Banquet 25 October 1875, was a Member of the Balaclava Commemoration Society 1879, signed the Loyal Address 1887, and attended the Society annual dinners in 1887, 1893, and 1895.