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Auction: 13001 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals and Militaria
Lot: 152

A Superb M.G.S. to Private J. King, 4th Foot, Who Served in Eleven Actions With the Regiment; Was Wounded Six Times, on the Peninsula and in North America; and Taken Prisoner of War
Military General Service 1793-1814, three clasps, Badajoz, Salamanca, St. Sebastian (John King, 4th. Foot.), nearly extremely fine

Private John King, born Lambeth, Surrey, 1789; enlisted in the 4th (King´s Own) Foot, April 1809; served with the 1st Battalion in the Peninsula, and present at the Battle of Badajoz, 6.4.1812 (suffered a bayonet wound to the left shoulder and gunshot wound to the back)- the Battalion as a whole suffered 4 Officers and 40 men killed and 15 Officers and 173 men wounded; at Salamanca; and at the assault on St. Sebastian, 31.8.1813 (wounded from a fall off the breach)- the 4th suffered terrible losses: 5 Officers and 117 men killed and 6 Officers and 170 men wounded at the breaches; subsequently served in the force investing Bayonne, December 1813, where he suffered a sword wound, and a gunshot wound to the left knee. In 1814 King sailed with the 4th Foot to America, present with the Regiment at the Battle of Bladensberg, 24.8.1814, and taken Prisoner of War- it is possible that he had volunteered to stay behind to help take care of the wounded, as the list of British prisoners in American hands gives his rank as ´orderly´; released shortly afterwards, he re-joined the regiment in time for the Battle of New Orleans and was present at the capture of Fort Bowyer during the attack on Mobile Bay, 10.2.1815, where he received his sixth and final wound, by gun-shot, with what was one of the last shots of the War, for two days later news of the Peace treaty signed the previous year arrived from England. Injuries prevented King from serving with the Regiment at Waterloo; he was discharged in June 1817, after 8 years and 65 days with the Colours, and died in Limehouse, London, June 1857.

Sold for
£5,200