SOUTH DEVON MILITIA MEDAL OF MERIT 1799 (unnamed, as issued). Obverse: trophy of arms enclosed by a wreath, legend around, “To the South Devon Militia in Testimony of Merit 1799”;

SOUTH DEVON MILITIA MEDAL OF MERIT 1799 (unnamed, as issued). Obverse: trophy of arms enclosed by a wreath, legend around, “To the South Devon Militia in Testimony of Merit 1799”; reverse: arms of Waterford. 32mm, silver, plain silver jump ring and ring suspender and mounted on a plain silver top brooch bar suspender. Balmer V243. Edge bruise to obverse rim at 9 o’clock, otherwise Good Very Fine and a rare example of the medal which has the distinction of being the first to be officially awarded to men from a British regiment for gallantry or meritorious service.

Medal accompanied by copied extract from James L. Balmer’s unpublished “British and Irish Regimental and Volunteer Medals” (part 2, The Militia, Fencibles and Volunteer Army of the British Mainland), extract regimental history of the South Devon Militia and an article from the Medal Society of Ireland Journal of May 1994 by Ed Sullivan re. the South Devon Militia Medal of Merit.

This medal was awarded by the city of Waterford to selected officers and men of the South Devon Militia that was quartered in the city 1798-99, to protect the city and district during the Irish rebellion of that 1798 and the early months of the year that followed. The regiment, under the command of Colonel Lord Rolle, served in Ireland from September 1798 to July 1799. It was largely due to their presence in the city that Waterford, to a great extent, escaped the mayhem and murder that took place in many parts of Ireland during and immediately after the rising of 1798. The regiment was particularly active in March 1799, a period of widespread robberies and murders in the adjoining county of Kilkenny, during which time it took some prisoners and escorted 600 rebels who were being transported to the West Indies and Minorca, in April 1799, when it carried out a search for arms for eight or nine miles around the city of Waterford, and on 11th May 1799, when the regiment was under arms all night as a result of an alarm that a French ship was inshore and threatening to launch an attack on Waterford. On its return to England in 1799 the regiment was given the Freedom of Bideford.

As a result of the South Devon Militia’s distinguished service in Waterford it was resolved unanimously by the Waterford Corporation that the Freedom of the City be presented in a gold box to the Colonel of the regiment, and that certain selected members of the regiment be awarded a specially struck silver medal. The regimental history “Annals of the Militia being The Records of the South Devon Regiment” records that ‘This is the first instance amongst existing Regiments of a gift of a medal to be worn by men in recognition of military services.’ It is not known exactly how many medals were struck in total, but less than 10 examples are known to have survived today.

Given that only “selected members” of the South Devon Militia were awarded a medal by the Corporation of Waterford, and that the medal describes itself as a “Testimony of Merit”, this medal is undoubtedly a reward in the field for gallantry and / or meritorious service, and as such is the first medal to be awarded to officers and men of a British regiment for gallantry or meritorious service.

Balmer notes the existence of two varieties of this medal, on a thick and a thin flan, this being an example of the thin flan variety, and also records two named examples, to a Sergeant Robert Elliott and a Private Richard Helier, both of which were in the Whitaker collection. Balmer also records a variety of this medal (Balmer Add.504), which has the same obverse as this medal, but which has on the reverse the capital letter “P” within a laurel wreath, describing this other variety as either a medal that was struck uniface and then engraved, or a medal that had had its reverse erased and then engraved. There were two officers of the South Devon Militia with the surname beginning “P”, a Lieutenant Henry Pynn and a Major Raimondo Putt, and this latter variety of the medal was presumably worn by one of these officers.