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Auction: 16001 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals and Militaria
Lot: 515

Portrait Miniature of Ensign W. Leeke, 52nd Foot, Who Carried the Regimental Colours at the Battle of Waterloo, 18.6.1815, Together With the Recipient's Annotated Plans of the Waterloo Campaign
Portrait Miniature of Ensign William Leeke, 52nd Foot, oval glazed miniature, water-colour on ivory, within a metal frame, 97mm x 81mm, set within a rectangular wooden plaque, with an old label on the reverse, inscribed in ink, ‘Ensign William Leeke, 52nd Light Infantry who carried the Colours at the Battle of Waterloo’; the plaque set within a modern protective folder, inscribed 'Ensign William Leeke, 52nd Foot', good condition

Plans of the Battles of Quatre Bras, Ligny, Waterloo and Wavre 1815, by Captain W. Siborne, Leeke’s own copy, 11 maps of the aforesaid battles and area of campaign, some with annotations in ink by Leeke, with protective tissue, these bound within modern half calf marbled boards, 570mm x 44mm, bearing an older title section, gilt on red leather, reading, ‘Plans of the Battles of Quatre-Bras, Ligny, Waterloo and Wavre, 1815, Siborne, William Leeke 52nd Light Infantry’, fairly good condition, scarce

Lieutenant William Leeke, was Commissioned Ensign in the 52nd Foot in May 1815, and served with the Regiment during the Waterloo Campaign, 16-18.6.1815, where he carried the Regimental Colours during the Battle of Waterloo. Promoted Lieutenant in November 1823, he left the Service the following year, and entered Queen’s College, Cambridge as a fellow commoner in 1825. Ordained in the Diocese of Chichester in 1829, he served as Curate of Westham, Sussex, 1929-31, and then of Brailsford, Derbyshire, 1831-40. From 1840 until his death in 1879 he was the Perpetual Curate of St. Michael’s Church at Holbrooke in Derbyshire and also served as Rural Dean of Duffield for some 25 years. In 1866 he published his two volume work on the 52nd Foot at the Battle of Waterloo; here Leeke was at pains to emphasise that the final attack of the French Imperial Guard was defeated mainly through the efforts of the 52nd Foot, who caught the Guard on the flank.

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Estimate
£4,000 to £5,000