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Auction: 17001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 2

A rare Naval General Service 1793-1840 Medal awarded to Quarter Master's Mate Henry Notley, Royal Navy, among those landed from H.M.S. Caroline at the capture of Neira in the Banda - or Spice - Islands in August 1810

Naval General Service 1793-1840, one clasp, Banda Neira (Henry Notley), minor marks to obverse, otherwise extremely fine

Ex Spink, October 1950 and September 2001.

The published rolls confirm the recipient as a Quarter-Master's Mate aboard H.M.S. Caroline for the capture of Neira, in the Banda - or Spice - Islands, on 9 August 1810: he was one of just 68 recipients of the appropriate clasp.

Henry Notley entered the Royal Navy at Calcutta, as an Ordinary Seaman aboard the Caroline in October 1803, aged 22 years. A native of Doncaster, he had likely seen service as a merchant seaman.

Advanced to Able Seaman in early 1805 and to Quarter Master's Mate in May 1810, he was still serving in the Caroline at the capture of the island of Neira later that year. Low's The Great Battles of the British Navy takes up the story:

'And before the end of the summer [in 1810], Captain Cole, of the Caroline, 36, with the Remonstrance, 38, Captain Foote, and the Barracouta, 18, Lieutenant Kenah, achieved a glorious success in the reduction of Banda, the chief of the Spice Islands. Disembarking less than 400 men, half of whom missed their way back in the dark, he first scaled the strong castle of Belgica, and then gained possession of the castle and town of Nassau, and forced the garrison of 700 Regulars and a large body of Militia to lay down their arms. This almost unique feat of arms, by which two castles and 10 Batteries, amounting to 138 guns, fell into British hands, was accomplished with only 140 sailors and 40 soldiers, and without the loss of a single man. Captain Cole was knighted, and received the Thanks of the Admiralty, Commander-in-Chief and Governor-General, and four Swords of Honour, one of which, with a letter from the crew of the Caroline, must have been especially gratifying to this dashing Officer.'

Two months after the action in the Spice Islands, Notley was admitted to hospital in Madras, from whence he was discharged and given passage home in the Barbados in February 1811.

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Sold for
£7,000