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Auction: 18003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 26

Waterloo 1815 (Ensign P. Cooke. 2nd Batt. 44th Reg. Foot.), replacement integral ring and split-ring suspension, rank, initial and surname unofficially, but contemporarily engraved, unit officially impressed, contact marks, fine

P. Cooke fought at the Battle of Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815 as an Ensign with Captain G. C. Hill's Company, 2nd Battalion, 44th (East Essex) Regiment of Foot. The Waterloo Medal roll records him as having been killed at Quatre Bras, where at about 4.30 p.m. the regiment was severely mauled by French lancers of Piré's Brigade. Concealed in standing corn, the lancers were not idenitified as French until it was too late. Rallying round the Colours, small pockets of the 44th offered stubborn resistance as the French cavalry overan the two-rank British line. As an Ensign, Cooke would have been an obvious target for Piré's lancers, and intense fighting must have swirled around him; he may have given his life to protect the Colours. By the end of the battle, the 44th's losses were so great that the regiment, unable to form its own square, had to form a joint square with the 42nd Foot.

Cooke never lived to claim his Waterloo Medal. It is likely that this medal, correctly impressed to the 44th Foot, was privately engraved by his family.

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Sold for
£650