Numismatic Notes Part

The Issue of British Crimea War Medals 1854-56 (continued)

Further to last month's notes on the issue of the British Crimea War Medal and my few thoughts upon the whereabouts of the vast quantities of unnamed issues, I thought a little fine tuning to these areas may be of some interest. I wrote that something over 300,000 Crimea War Medals were struck although that figure considerably exceeded previous published estimates. In fact, Royal Mint records have revealed that up to the end of March 1860 a total of 379,908 were struck for issue to the soldiers and sailors of Great Britain and her Allies. Military activity during the years 1854-60 greatly increased the medallic workload at the Mint which, apart from the awards for Arctic Discoveries included those for South Africa 1834-53  Campaigns (10,415) together with the Baltic Campaign (61,109), and it was due to this pressure that the Mint contracted the striking of 50,000 Crimea Medals to Messrs R. Heaton and Sons of Birmingham, who also mounted them and subsequently supplied them, but unnamed and without clasps. The balance of 330,000, all struck at the Mint, were mounted almost entirely by Hunt and Roskill, who were also responsible for manufacturing all the Crimea clasps. Some clasps were attached by them to unnamed medals and many other clasps were sent to the Crimea in bulk, loose.

Three reasons are apparent for the majority of the Crimean issuance being unnamed.
Firstly, 'Her Majesty has been pleased specially to command that every exertion should be used to complete these decorations as speedily as possible...'. This Royal insistence was made to the Secretary of State for War on 6.1.1855 well before the end of the Crimean conflict. Secondly, over unnamed 235,000 Medals were delivered to the Foreign Office for transmission to our French, Sardinian and Turkish Allies. Thirdly, if there was any real intent to officially name at least all the British Medals, the incoming Secretary of State for War, Lord Panmure and the inability of the Mint to name the medals quickly, assured the Crimea Medal specialist of today of an on-going problem (March Newsletter refers).

An interesting and unpublished piece of information found in the Mint archive relates to approximately 8,500 Medals already issued to Regiments but which were sent in for naming after the return of the Army from the Crimea. Some 1,700 of this quantity relate to Cavalry Regiments.

PS: If you own what you feel is a contemporarily engraved Crimea Medal - and I can assure you after a careful and thoughtful examination it will talk to you - then you will have the pleasure and satisfaction of owning a medal that was worn and was handled by the man who won it.