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Auction: 24002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 1

The fine Naval General Service Medal awarded to Lieutenant J. Hill, Royal Navy, whose service afloat totalled over forty years and who saw plenty of action during the Napoleonic Wars

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Egypt (John Hill, Midshipman.), on its original silk riband, about extremely fine

Three officers of this name appear on the roll for the Naval General Service Medal, however, this is the only single-clasp medal to a Midshipman.

John Hill joined the Royal Navy on 6 March 1798 as a First-Class Volunteer aboard the 50-gun, Fourth-Rate H.M.S. Europa and was advanced to Midshipman aboard her 10 months later. Europa was employed as a troopship during the British expedition to Egypt in 1801 and actively involved in the opposed landing at Aboukir Bay on 8 March of that year. Hill is mentioned by name as serving in the ship's launch, armed with a carronade, and must have been well within range of the French as two men in the boat were subsequently wounded (Hill, John (a), 'A Naval Biographical Dictionary', W.R. O'Byrne, refers). He then spent six months ashore with the army, likely in the various operations to finally expel their enemy from Egypt and thereby completely ending Bonaparte's ambitions to conquer the country and threaten India.

From Europa, Hill then served variously in H.M.S. L'Egyptienne and L'Africaine on the Channel and Mediterranean stations before heading to the West Indies aboard the store-ship Camel, from where he removed to the sloops Renard, Shark and Goelan. The 18-gun H.M.S. Renard saw a great deal of active service around the Caribbean and West Indies, pursuing and capturing French privateers and generally protecting British interests and trade from attack. From these smaller vessels Hill was next appointed to the frigate Hebe for 11 months before moving again, to the 18-gun sloop H.M.S. Pelican, as Acting-Lieutenant - all the while still on the West Indies station. His first taste of independent command came on 26 August 1812 with promotion into the 10-gun schooner H.M.S. Landrail; O'Byrne states: ...'in which vessel he performed a service of some importance connected with the restoration of Louis XVIII'... (ibid), which appears to refer to the carrying of dispatches and a Royalist French officer from Bordeaux to Falmouth. In June 1814 Lieutenant Hill was appointed to another 10-gun schooner, H.M.S. Pioneer, and though towards the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars she still saw some adventure and action with note being made of her being caught in a gale in the Atlantic and subsequently chased by an American vessel of larger size.

At the conclusion of the war, Hill remained employed in the Royal Navy and placed in command of various packet ships including Rinaldo and Crane; his biographical entry (referenced above) makes further note that, in 1839, he had command of the steamer Lightning when the King and Queen of the Belgians, and the Duke of Saxe Coburg, came aboard to return to Europe, and had also received the former a few days previously when they arrived at Woolwich. John Hill was finally placed on half-pay in May 1842, after a very active career of no less than 44 years.

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Sold for
£2,000

Starting price
£1600