Coin Collector

SPOTLIGHT ON MEDALS But Malone’s Crimean wounds, years of service in harsh foreign climates and a tough life after he left the Army took their toll. In 1902 the destitute ex-soldier applied to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea for financial help. The doctor’s report makes grim reading: ‘This man is infirm and old and not fit to earn anything. He is very deaf. Suffers from chronic bronchitis. Follows no occupation now. Earnings nil. Quite unable to work. States he cannot walk as well as he used to.’ Frustratingly, the outcome of Malone’s application is not recorded but one hopes that the authorities eased his final years until his death in 1909. His story graphically illustrates the hardships of ex-soldiers in an age before the welfare state and had I not bought his only named medal on impulse, it might have remained untold. with the 47th, where he transferred to the 99th Regiment in 1858. Less than two years later he found himself on active service again, this time in China, where the British sent in troops to enforce economic demands, including legalization of the opium trade. While it was not Britain’s finest hour morally, the campaign is historically fascinating and the troops endured considerable hardships. It was for this that Malone was awarded the medal I had bought. In November 1864 Malone was discharged from the Army but re-enlisted in the 8th Regiment just weeks later in January 1865 after what seems to have been a miserable Christmas and New Year. He was finally discharged in 1876 after 21 years in uniform. Malone went to live near Accrington, Lancashire, married a widow with three sons and fathered a daughter. For another quarter of a century he endured the backbreaking life of a labourer in late Victorian Britain. I did not intend to buy Martin Malone’s campaign medal when I sat down in a provincial saleroom a little over a year ago, writes Will Bennett. I planned to bid for one lot early in the auction for a fellow collector and another for myself late in the sale. Both bids proved successful but the flaw in my strategy was that there was time for temptation to take hold in the long intervening period. Malone’s medal for the Second China War of 1857-60, awarded for service with the 99th Regiment, had no battle clasps to make it more attractive and looked battered and unloved. So it proved when it came up for sale, with no interest from bidders. As it hovered below the low estimate with the auctioneer about to declare it unsold, I raised my hand on a whim. It was mine for a modest price. No information came with the medal but research revealed a Dickensian story of Victorian hardship. Born in Ireland, Malone enlisted in the 47th Regiment in 1854 aged just seventeen. By the following year the teenager was in the trenches surrounding Sebastopol as the British and French besieged the Russians during the Crimean War and was severely wounded by shell splinters. Malone moved on to India HEROICS AND HARDSHIP In our regular spotlight on medals, Will Bennett describes the dramatic and ultimately tragic tale of a 19th-century irish soldier ORDERS & MEDALS RESEARCH SOCIETY Find out much more about medal collecting with the help of the Orders & Medals Research Society. The Society exists to promote a general interest in the study of orders, decorations and medals and to actively encourage and publish research into all aspects of civil and military medals, with a particular focus on those issued by Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries. Visit the OMRS website at: omrs.org