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Auction: 18003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 6

Military General Service 1793-1814, 2 clasps, Busaco, Cuidad Rodrigo (Joseph Richardson, 88th Foot), better than very fine

Provenance:
Spink, 1897.
Sotheby's, June 1904.

Joseph Richardson was born at Mansfield in Nottinghamshire in 1793. Employed as a weaver, he enlisted into the 88th Regiment of Foot (Connaught Rangers) on 22 April 1805. He served as a Private with the 1st Battalion at the Battle of Busaco on 27 September 1810. Wellington withdrew to the heights of Busaco, 125 miles north-east of Lisbon, when Marshal Masséna's army swept into Portugal during the summer of 1810. At dawn on 27 September, Masséna's infantry advanced in divisional columns against Wellington's position. Meeting the brunt of the French attack were the 45th and 88th Foot, part of Picton's 3rd Division. Converging fire from these two regiments wrought havoc in Merle's Division as it tried to form into line. Though vastly outnumbered, the 88th Foot made a bayonet charge against the oncoming French and sent them reeling down the hill, at a cost of 134 casualties. Sir Arthur Wellesley, now Viscount Wellington, rode up to congratulate the 88th Foot's commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace, with the words:

'Wallace, I never saw a more gallant charge than that just now made by your regiment.'

The 1st Battalion then retreated, with the rest of Wellington's army, to the Lines of Torres Vedras. In 1812 it played a conspicuous role in the capture of Cuidad Rodrigo (clasp) and Badajoz, two border towns barring Wellington's approach into Spain. Wellington began constructing parallels around Cuidad Rodrigo on 8 January, and on 19 January two breaches were established. The widest of these, at 100 feet, was assigned to Picton's 3rd Division. Before the attack, sappers threw bags and fascines into the ditch to reduce its height from 14 to 8 feet. The stormers of 3rd Division jumped forward and rushed into the breach, every gun on the ramparts trained upon them. The British suffered over 550 casualties during the siege and an estimated 500 casualties during the assault.

Richardson was discharged to the 7th Royal Veteran Battalion on 24 May 1816, due to a 'gunshot wound to the left elbow'; sold with copied discharge papers.

Recommended reading:

Cannon, R., Historical Record of the Eighty-Eighth Regiment of Foot (London, 1838).


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Sold for
£1,500