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Auction: 9033 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals & Militaria
Lot: 124

x Naval General Service 1793-1840, two clasps, Egypt, Martinique (Thomas Cochrane, Capt.), lacquered, very fine, with contemporary silver top riband buckle, this with gold retaining pin, and a miniature portrait of recipient in uniform wearing his full entitlement, an unsigned watercolour mounted in a glazed and gilt metal frame, 85mm x 70 mm (lot) Estimate £ 4,000-5,000 Thomas Cochrane served as Midshipman in H.M.S. Ajax in cooperation with the Army on and off the coast of Egypt, 1801; Cochrane served as Captain of H.M.S. Ethalion, as part of the naval force under his father Rear Admiral Alexander Cochrane tasked with combining with the military assault and capture of the French-held island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea, 24.2.1809. Admiral of the White Sir Thomas John Cochrane, K.C.B. (1789-1872), born Edinburgh, Scotland, as the eldest son of Admiral of the White Hon. Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane, G.C.B.; he was also nephew of Major Hon. Charles Cochrane, aide-de-camp to Lord Cornwallis, who was slain in the first American War, 18.10.1781; and 1st cousin of the Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B.; Thomas John Cochrane entered the Royal Navy as First Class Volunteer in H.M.S. Thetis (commanded by his father), 1796; he served in the latter on the North American station until 1798; he rejoined his father, then in command of H.M.S. Ajax, 1800; he served with the latter as Midshipman in the expeditions against Quiberon, Belleisle, Ferrol and Egypt; served under his father´s flag in H.M.S. Northumberland, 1803-04, before being appointed Lieutenant in H.M.S. Jason (Captain W. Champain), on the West Indies station; after being promoted to the command of the Nimrod sloop, Cochrane was removed from the Melville to the Acting-Captaincy of H.M.S. Jason; serving off the coast of Surinam he took the French sloop La Favorite, mounting sixteen long sixes and thirteen 12-pounder carronades, with a complement of 150, 27.1.1807; in company with La Favorite was another sloop of war, which escaped, and got into shoal water on the coast of Guyana, while Captain Cochrane was taking her consort; the two sloops together were a force equal to the Jason, whose armament consisted only of 12-pounders (London Gazette 1807, p479); in December of the same year he assisted in reducing the Danish West India islands; appointed Captain, H.M.S. Ethalion, October 1808, with whom he had an encounter with the French frigate Amphitrite, before going on to serve in the capture of Martinique and the Saintes (London Gazette 1809, p403); he was Knighted, as proxy for his father at his instillation as a K.B., 29.5.1812; appointed to the command of H.M.S. Surprise, August 1812, and captured the American privateer Decatur (12 guns and a complement of 80 men), 16.1.1813; he was in the Chesapeake during the attacks on Washington and Baltimore (the Surprise bore the flag of the C.-in-C. at Baltimore), and in the operations on the coast of Georgia; appointed to H.M.S. Forte, June 1820; he returned to England in October of 1822 and formed part of the royal escort on the occasion of George IV´s visit to Scotland; the following year he helped to countermand a political situation forming with Spain in the West Indies, by delivering with extraordinary haste government despatches to Sir Edward Owen and thus avoiding military measures against Spanish possessions; for this service Sir Thomas received the approbation of the British Government; appointed as the 1st Governor of Newfoundland, 1825, and served as the 1st Civil Governor of that place, 1832-34; Member of Parliament for Ipswich, 1837-41; attained the rank of Rear-Admiral, November 1841, and in January of the following year he hoisted his flag in H.M.S. Agincourt, as second in command on the East India station; he later served as Commander-in-Chief on the same station, 1845-47 (K.C.B.); during the latter period he organised and took part in the anti-piracy and slaving campaigns around North West Borneo, destroying the forts at Brunei in 1845 and 1846 (London Gazette 1845 p6533 and 1846 p2347, respectively); Vice-Admiral January 1850; Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, 1852-56; advanced Admiral 1856.

Sold for
£8,000