An Attractive WATERLOO MEDAL with an unusually long pedigree from its first sale in 1871.
To:
JAMES WILKIE. Royal Foot Artillery.
Born 1789 at Evandale, just south of Glasgow in Lanarkshire.A weaver who’s lifespan endured the period of
THE “SCOTTISH” RADICAL WAR in 1820
Nice VF+
Officially Impressed:
*JAMES WILKIE, GUNNER, ROYAL FOOT ARTILLERY. *
(Slightly weak strike at “ER” of Gunner)
Very early & standard replacement clip & ring suspension.
[BIOGRAPHY] 1789- (And The Scottish Radical War 1820)
JAMES WILKIE was born In 1789 at Evandale in Lanarkshire, Scotland. Prior to enlisting into the British Army at Glasgow on 20th February 1808 at age 19 he had been a young weaver lad at a very pivotal & difficult time in Scottish history.
He had likely been working since about the age of 10 or 12 and by 1808 even his small wages would have been reduced to only 50% of his original starting earnings. It’s therefore very clear why he decided to join the army.
James Wilkie was 5ft 7” tall with dark brown hair, grey eyes, and with a fresh complexion.
[THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO] He served at the Battle of Waterloo in Captain Thomas Hutchesson’s company and served for 14 years & 60 days which included 2 years extra service credited for Waterloo which counted towards his pension.
His conduct during his period of service was described on his Woolwich discharge papers of 29th February 1820 as “Regular”.
He was 31 years of age upon his discharge and was granted a pension of 5 pence per day & given a certificate of free passage from London to Leith with marching money of 6 shillings & 6 pence....6 days at 1/1d per day travel allowance ....(Now worth £3.25).
[THE “SCOTTISH” RADICAL WAR]
Between 1800 and 1808 the average wage of a weaver had halved, and the devaluation of their work continued into the next decade until the situation clearly became unbearable.
As a young man, James clearly escaped this impossible financial situation by signing up.
While he was in the army, and in 1813, a Scots general strike of an estimated 40,000 weavers took place and lasted nine weeks, until the authorities arrived and arrested the leaders. This made the workers return to work. As this stiff economic recession continued to grip Scotland, the situation worsened, and in 1816, a year after Waterloo, another gathering of an estimated 40,000 workers turned up at Thrushgrove near Glasgow, demanding reform, but sadly to no avail.
The actual “Radical War” only lasted a few days but despite it almost being written out of history it has left its mark. It started late on Saturday the 1st April 1820 when a Committee of Organisation for Forming a Provisional Government put up placards calling for a national strike as a result of social unrest from workers fed up with the unjust pay and poor working and living conditions from the British government.
The British state had mercilessly suppressed the workers’ movement and executed three of its leaders – James Wilson, John Baird and Andrew Hardie. There were other “judicial murders” and deportations, and innocent civilians were gunned down in the streets, especially in Greenock.
The sad industrial events of 1820 and their preceding reasons and bitter, but ultimately triumphant, aftermath are certainly the most under-reported matters in the history of Scotland. Many histories completely play it down as as a minor aberration at a time when Scotland was really starting to play a major part in the life of the union .
It was thus into this period of extreme social unrest in the Glasgow area of 1820’s Scotland that James returned a month earlier in February of 1820. His request for a passage to Leith was thus probably indicative of a clear knowledge of the problematic situation in his home area of Glasgow which no doubt precipitated a planned change in the nature of his employment and a possible move into the shipping industry, as Leith is a port town to the north of Edinburgh. Further research may well uncover the nature of his post-Army career.
[THE MEDAL]....and a potentially fascinating story.
By doing a bit of the detective work, which we love, and by drawing on much personal experience, we can deduce some interesting factors.
When looking at both the social circumstances of the time and by very carefully assessing the exact condition of the medal itself, which is VF+ with very light natural wear & contact activity in the obverse field, the probable “life history” of this particular medal becomes more clear.
A discharged Waterloo man would under normal circumstances have proudly worn his medal on his coat for all his life. This was normal at the time, as it guaranteed a free beer in any pub in Britain in exchange for a tale about the battle.
Indeed, as collectors will know, a large number of Waterloo medals survive in extremely worn condition having had demanding social lives on the jackets of recipients. However, with this particular example it’s fairly clear that James probably pawned or sold his medal after what I would estimate as about 25 years of careful ownership, and although 25 years is a fair time, it has clearly had only occasional but regular use, perhaps being worn on special occasions before it was sold and “retired” into its now permanent and eternal life as a collectors piece.
This disposal was probably reluctant and due to financial necessity at some time in the mid 1840’s when he was getting older in his mid-50’s and a fairly aged man by the standards of the day.
Indeed, the medal made its first recorded appearance at auction as part of the famous Fleming Scottish collection as early as 1871 where it had most probably resided for most of the thirty years after its disposal by the recipient.
We can, and most unusually via no less than 11 auctions & collections, trace the complete journey of the medal right through from the end of the 19th century and for the whole of the 20th Century, right up to today in the 21st Century (March 2021) when it arrived with us.
It’s amazing 150 year provenance is as follows:
Fleming Collection, 1871.
Glendining’s Auction, April 1908.
Glendining’s Auction, December 1919,
Sang Collection, January 1931.
Glendining’s Auction, March 1931.
Glendining’s Auction, July 1946.
Seaby, January 1947.
Baldwin’s, January 1953.
Hamilton’s, February 1981.
DNW. 5th July 2011 (Lot 17)
DNW. 10th December 2014 (Lot 581)
Medals of England. March 2021.
This is a very emotive & interesting medal with a great Scottish story which we hope will find yet another proud owner, perhaps, based on its social history, as a special part of a Scots Nationalist’s medal collection.
With its emotive memories of the most famous battle in our history and of the part played in it by a brave young Scotsman so long ago, it is bound to find an appreciative new owner, maybe “at home” back in Bonny Scotland.
SOLD
[THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO] He served at the Battle of Waterloo in Captain Thomas Hutchesson’s company and served for 14 years & 60 days which included 2 years extra service credited for Waterloo which counted towards his pension.
His conduct during his period of service was described on his Woolwich discharge papers of 29th February 1820 as “Regular”.
He was 31 years of age upon his discharge and was granted a pension of 5 pence per day & given a certificate of free passage from London to Leith with marching money of 6 shillings & 6 pence....6 days at 1/1d per day travel allowance ....(Now worth £3.25).
[THE “SCOTTISH” RADICAL WAR]
Between 1800 and 1808 the average wage of a weaver had halved, and the devaluation of their work continued into the next decade until the situation clearly became unbearable.
As a young man, James clearly escaped this impossible financial situation by signing up.
While he was in the army, and in 1813, a Scots general strike of an estimated 40,000 weavers took place and lasted nine weeks, until the authorities arrived and arrested the leaders. This made the workers return to work. As this stiff economic recession continued to grip Scotland, the situation worsened, and in 1816, a year after Waterloo, another gathering of an estimated 40,000 workers turned up at Thrushgrove near Glasgow, demanding reform, but sadly to no avail.
The actual “Radical War” only lasted a few days but despite it almost being written out of history it has left its mark. It started late on Saturday the 1st April 1820 when a Committee of Organisation for Forming a Provisional Government put up placards calling for a national strike as a result of social unrest from workers fed up with the unjust pay and poor working and living conditions from the British government.
The British state had mercilessly suppressed the workers’ movement and executed three of its leaders – James Wilson, John Baird and Andrew Hardie. There were other “judicial murders” and deportations, and innocent civilians were gunned down in the streets, especially in Greenock.
The sad industrial events of 1820 and their preceding reasons and bitter, but ultimately triumphant, aftermath are certainly the most under-reported matters in the history of Scotland. Many histories completely play it down as as a minor aberration at a time when Scotland was really starting to play a major part in the life of the union .
It was thus into this period of extreme social unrest in the Glasgow area of 1820’s Scotland that James returned a month earlier in February of 1820. His request for a passage to Leith was thus probably indicative of a clear knowledge of the problematic situation in his home area of Glasgow which no doubt precipitated a planned change in the nature of his employment and a possible move into the shipping industry, as Leith is a port town to the north of Edinburgh. Further research may well uncover the nature of his post-Army career.
[THE MEDAL]....and a potentially fascinating story.
By doing a bit of the detective work, which we love, and by drawing on much personal experience, we can deduce some interesting factors.
When looking at both the social circumstances of the time and by very carefully assessing the exact condition of the medal itself, which is VF+ with very light natural wear & contact activity in the obverse field, the probable “life history” of this particular medal becomes more clear.
A discharged Waterloo man would under normal circumstances have proudly worn his medal on his coat for all his life. This was normal at the time, as it guaranteed a free beer in any pub in Britain in exchange for a tale about the battle.
Indeed, as collectors will know, a large number of Waterloo medals survive in extremely worn condition having had demanding social lives on the jackets of recipients. However, with this particular example it’s fairly clear that James probably pawned or sold his medal after what I would estimate as about 25 years of careful ownership, and although 25 years is a fair time, it has clearly had only occasional but regular use, perhaps being worn on special occasions before it was sold and “retired” into its now permanent and eternal life as a collectors piece.
This disposal was probably reluctant and due to financial necessity at some time in the mid 1840’s when he was getting older in his mid-50’s and a fairly aged man by the standards of the day.
Indeed, the medal made its first recorded appearance at auction as part of the famous Fleming Scottish collection as early as 1871 where it had most probably resided for most of the thirty years after its disposal by the recipient.
We can, and most unusually via no less than 11 auctions & collections, trace the complete journey of the medal right through from the end of the 19th century and for the whole of the 20th Century, right up to today in the 21st Century (March 2021) when it arrived with us.
It’s amazing 150 year provenance is as follows:
Fleming Collection, 1871.
Glendining’s Auction, April 1908.
Glendining’s Auction, December 1919,
Sang Collection, January 1931.
Glendining’s Auction, March 1931.
Glendining’s Auction, July 1946.
Seaby, January 1947.
Baldwin’s, January 1953.
Hamilton’s, February 1981.
DNW. 5th July 2011 (Lot 17)
DNW. 10th December 2014 (Lot 581)
Medals of England. March 2021.
This is a very emotive & interesting medal with a great Scottish story which we hope will find yet another proud owner, perhaps, based on its social history, as a special part of a Scots Nationalist’s medal collection.
With its emotive memories of the most famous battle in our history and of the part played in it by a brave young Scotsman so long ago, it is bound to find an appreciative new owner, maybe “at home” back in Bonny Scotland.
SOLD