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Auction: 24002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 137

Pair: Cornet J. Baker, 8th (The King's Royal Irish) Regiment of (Light) Dragoons (Hussars), also Lieutenant-Colonel, Cambridge University Rifle Volunteers, who latterly became an important Canadian Political figure

Crimea 1854-56, 1 clasp, Sebastopol, tailor’s copy clasp (Cornet James Baker, 8th Hussars); Turkish Crimea 1855, Sardinian issue, contemporary tailor’s copy by ‘J.B.’, both medals with impressed naming similar in style to that found on I.G.S. medals for the North West Frontier to the 7th Hussars, good very fine (2)

James Baker was born in January 1830, the son of Samuel Baker and scion of the famous West Country family. They had made some fortune due to the privateering work of Valentine Baker and lived at Lypiatt Park, Gloucestershire and 38 Beaumont Street, London. Young Baker was educated in Gloucester and apparently in his youth also went to the coasts of Africa to assist in anti-slavery operations of the Indian Navy.

Letters were sent from Lord Anglesey which recommended young Baker for a Cornetsy in the Royal Horse Guards, to which he was appointed on 18 November 1853, and transferred, as Cornet, to the 8th Hussars on 22 December 1854. He joined the regiment in the Crimea aboard the Golden Fleece on 14 July 1855 and served in the Eastern campaign, including the siege and fall of Sebastopol.

He was the senior Cornet when he went on leave on 15 May 1856, and had not rejoined the regiment by the 30th of September of that same year, after which date he is no longer recorded. He resigned, by the sale of his commission, on 1 August 1856.

Baker thence went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge. Afterwards, Baker acted as an unpaid freelance intelligence gatherer, writing Turkey in Europe as well as several confidential reports to the Prime Minister, Lord Beaconsfield. He was employed for a time as one of the private secretaries of the Duke of Westminster before going out to Canada. He settled at Skookumchuck in 1885 and later near the present site of Cranbrook, before forging his name in the politics of the region. He represented Kootenay from 1886-90, East Kootenay from 1890-98 and East Kootenay South from 1898-1900 in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. Like his father, he was also involved in the railways at that time, closing a deal with the Canadian Pacific Railway in the Crowsnest Pass area. He died in July 1906, his remarkable career being overshadowed by his more famous brothers, Sir Samuel White Baker and Valentine 'Pascha' Baker.

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Sold for
£600

Starting price
£190