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Auction: 20001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - conducted behind closed doors
Lot: 775

Pair: Private W. Twiddy, alias Crick, Waikato Regiment, late Royal Navy
Baltic 1854-55 (W. Twiddy, Boy. 2 Cl, H.M.S. Belleisle.); New Zealand 1845-66, reverse undated (Pte. W. Crick. 3/Waikato Regt.), both later issues with officially impressed naming, nearly extremely fine (2)

William Twiddy was born on 21 May 1839 at Plymouth, Devon, and attested at St George on 10 February 1854 under the command of Captain Harry Eyres. His papers note a 4ft 10-inch tall boy, 'pitted with small pox'. He is shown on the Baltic Medal Roll as Boy 2nd Class aboard H.M.S. Belleisle, an additional entry against his name dated 1910 confirming issue.

A contemporary newspaper obituary adds a little more detail regarding Twiddy:

'Sudden Death at Lavender Bay.

William Twiddy, aged 72 years, lately residing with his wife, and a carrying on a small business under the railway arch, Lavender Bay, was found dead in his chair in the back room of his dwelling, on Wednesday last. His wife had left him to visit her daughter at Balmain on the previous Monday, and the shop remaining closed on the Wednesday excited the curiosity of Constable Pattinson who affected an entrance and found the dead body as described. Twiddy had been subject to fits for the last 3 months and it may have been in one of these attacks that he passed away. The coroner dispensed with an inquest. Through most of his life the deceased had followed a seafaring life and his medals show that he was a Ship's Boy on H.M.S. Belle Isle in the Crimean War in 1854-5 and under the name of 'Crick, he received a medal for service in the Maori War on the Waikatto.'

There remains no 'Twiddy' or 'Crick' in the Royal Navy on the New Zealand Medal Rolls, and it remains possible that Twiddy was more than likely a deserter, for in 1862 the number of desertions from the R.N. and R.M. rose to nearly 1:10 where the lure of the goldfields and wide open spaces of the Colonies offered huge opportunities for seamen to disappear. Twiddy had enlisted in the 3rd Waikato Militia on 18 December 1863 at Otago, presumably after working in the local goldfields. He must have completed his 3 years' service as he received his land entitlement, being also entitled to an impressed Medal for service in the Commissariat Transport Corps; sold with copied Baltic Medal Roll and the original newspaper clipping.


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Sold for
£420

Starting price
£210