THE RARE WATERLOO MEDAL TO PRIVATE MAURICE RABBITT, SECOND BATTALION 59TH (2ND NOTTINGHAMSHIRE) REGIMENT (THE POST 1880 2ND BATTALION EAST LANCASHIRE REGIMENT) WHO PRIOR TO SEEING SERVICE WITH THE 59TH FOOT SAW SERVICE IN IRELAND WITH THE KILDARE MILITIA

THE RARE WATERLOO MEDAL TO PRIVATE MAURICE RABBITT, SECOND BATTALION 59TH (2ND NOTTINGHAMSHIRE) REGIMENT (THE POST 1880 2ND BATTALION EAST LANCASHIRE REGIMENT), WHO PRIOR TO SEEING SERVICE WITH THE 59TH FOOT SAW SERVICE IN IRELAND WITH THE KILDARE MILITIA AGAINST REBEL FORCES DURING THE 1798 REBELLION, TAKING PART IN THE ACTION AT VINEGAR HILL, 21ST JUNE 1798, THE LARGEST SET PIECE BATTLE TO TAKE PLACE DURING THE 1798 REBELLION.

Waterloo Medal (officially named, impressed in serifed upper and lower case capital letters and numbers: MAURICE RABBITT, 2nd BATT. 59th REG. FOOT.).

Original steel clip and split ring suspender, attractively toned, Almost Extremely Fine to Extremely Fine, an attractive example, and a rare Waterloo Medal to a man who saw service against the rebels during the 1798 rebellion in Ireland, and probably unique as such to the 59th Foot.

Medal accompanied by 2 pages of photocopied service papers, transcript Chelsea Pensioner record, various copied research and extracts Waterloo Medal roll (original and published), confirming medal (Rabbitt’s name is recorded incorrectly in the published medal roll as ‘Thos. Rabbitt’, but recorded correctly as Maurice Rabbitt in the original medal roll).

Maurice Rabbitt was born in Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland, circa 1770, and enlisted into the Kildare Militia in February 1795. Service papers confirm that he saw service with the Kildare Militia as a Sergeant for 14 years and 90 days before transferring to the 59th Foot in May 1809.

When war broke out with France in 1793 Ireland was in a disturbed and rebellious state. In order to deal with the twin threats of a possible French invasion of Ireland and a potential rebellion, the Irish parliament passed the 1793 Militia Act. The Kildare Militia, along with the other Irish militia battalions, being raised in 1793, following the passage of that act.

Given the dual problems posed by the external threat from France and domestic instability, the militia regiments newly raised in 1793 were tasked both with providing for national defence in place of regular troops who had been posted overseas to take part in the war with France and with supporting the Irish authorities in policing the civilian population. In order to prevent the militia regiments from being compromised by local home county loyalties the newly raised militia regiments were not permitted to serve in their home counties. The Kildare Militia first saw service outside County Kildare in Arklow, County Wicklow. There, in 1796, the regiment became involved in policing what became known as the Wicklow Gold Rush. When news leaked out in September 1796 that gold had been discovered in a stream flowing from the slopes of Mount Croghan, thousands of prospectors flocked to the scene of the discovery and set about making their fortunes. In the space of just 6 weeks some 2,666 ounces of gold were recovered, including three particularly large nuggets weighing 32, 18 and 9 ounces respectively. The government reacted by taking possession of the lands that were being prospected, sent in the Kildare Militia to disperse the prospectors, and prevent any further encroachment on the gold deposits, and passed an Act of Parliament licensing the mining rights to a private company, Weaver, Mills & King.

Maurice Rabbitt’s home county, County Kildare was, in 1793, and right up to the rebellion of 1798, one of the most disturbed counties in Ireland. The county possessed not only a well organised disaffected peasantry, but also an articulate middle class led revolutionary movement. As a result, Kildare was the county where the opening shots of the 1798 Rebellion were fired, the rebellion beginning when a rebel force some 200 strong attacked the 150 strong garrison in the town of Prosperous, County Kildare, on 24th May 1798, burnt the barracks there and planted their “Tree of Liberty” in the main street, the engagement resulting in the death of between 40 and 50 members of the garrison; and the county also saw the greatest concentration of rebel activity during the rebellion, the various other battles and engagements that took place in the county during 1798 following the battle of Prosperous including the battles of Clane, Ballymore Eustace, Kilcullen, Naas and Old Kilcullen (all on 24/5/1798), the battles of Rathangan (24th – 28th May), Narraghmore and Red Hill (25th May), the Gibbet Rath massacre (29th May), during which crown forces executed between 300 and 500 rebels, the battles of the Curragh of Kildare (31st May), Timahoe (3rd June) and Ovidstown (19th June), the sacking of Prosperous (19th June), and battles of Kilcock (20th June) and Newbridge (23rd June).

After seeing service in Wicklow the Kildare Militia was posted for service to Balbriggan, County Dublin, and from there was posted to County Wexford, where the regiment took part in the battle of Vinegar Hill, 21st June 1798. That engagement was a decisive victory for the 13,000 strong force of regular army infantry and cavalry, militia and yeomanry that defeated a 16,000 strong rebel force, the crown forces’ losses amounting to only 100 killed and wounded, whilst the rebel force suffered some 1,200 killed in action. Vinegar Hill was the largest set-piece battle to take place during the 1798 Rebellion and after their defeat the rebel forces in Wexford retreated to the Three Rocks camp near the town of Wexford, breaking up into a series of columns that fought a guerrilla war against crown forces.

With the Kildare Militia’s home county in open revolt, there was considerable doubt with regard to the loyalty of the Kildare Militia. As a result, after Vinegar Hill the Kildare Militia was posted as far as possible from the principal areas of rebel activity in northern, central and south-eastern Ireland, the regiment spending the remainder of 1798 and the whole of 1799 in the west of Ireland, stationed in counties Kerry and Limerick, and did not see action again against rebel forces.

Following a series of disastrous defeats in the Peninsula and the retreat to Corunna in January 1809, the government passed emergency legislation in March 1809 authorising an extensive recruitment campaign from the militia into the regular army, allowing for two-fifths of the militia to enlist into the regular army, with volunteers being paid a bounty of 14 guineas if they enlisted for life and 10 guineas if they enlisted for 7 years service, the scale of the bounties being offered being an indication of the urgency of the situation. This recruitment drive eventually led to 15,531 Irish militia men volunteering for service with the regular army, Maurice Rabbitt being one of the many men who transferred from the militia to the regular army at this time, enlisting into the 59th Foot on 17 May 1809. At the time of enlistment Rabbitt gave his trade as butcher and stated that he was 36 years old.

Prior to seeing service at Waterloo, the 2nd Battalion 59th Foot saw service in the disastrous Walcheren Expedition, July 30th – December 9th 1809, during which some 4,000 of the 39,000 troops involved died, mainly as a result of disease, the majority of the casualties resulting from malaria, typhus, typhoid and dysentery, with only 106 soldiers actually being killed in action. Afterwards the battalion took part in some of the more important battles that took place during the closing years of the Peninsular War, 1813-1814. The following account of the battalion’s services during that period is taken from Ian Fletcher’s “Wellington’s Regiments” (Spellmount Ltd, 1994):

“In the spring of 1813 the 2/59th were brigaded with the 4th and 47th Regiments to form part of Oswald’s 5th Division. During Wellington’s advance into Spain the battalion was rebuked for bringing along such a large amount of private baggage in carts which were piled high. On June 21st 1813 the battalion fought at Vittoria where it lost 144 killed and wounded. Lieutenant Colonel Fane was mortally wounded by a cannon ball during the fighting. On July 25th, at San Sebastian, the battalion suffered 30 casualties during an assault in which it never even left its trenches. On August 31st the town was stormed and the light company of the battalion formed part of the initial wave of Allied troops. It was virtually annihilated and when the main body of the 59th came up shortly afterwards it too suffered heavy casualties. The town was won, however, but at a cost to the 2/59th of 350 men killed or wounded. In October of 1813 the 2/59th crossed into southern France with the Allied army and in December was heavily engaged in the battle of the Nive at which it suffered 165 killed or wounded, mainly in fierce fighting around the village of Anglet. While Wellington pushed on towards Toulouse in pursuit of Soult in early 1814 the 2/59th were left behind as part of the force covering Bayonne and it was here that the battalion finished the Peninsular War. In May 1815, after a spell in Ireland the 2/59th sailed to Ostend to take part in the Waterloo campaign.”

At Waterloo Rabbitt saw service in Captain Lewis Amedee Denoe’s Company, 2nd Battalion 59th Foot, which formed part of Lieutenant-General Colville’s 4th Division. That Division was positioned on the right flank of Wellington’s position, with the 2/59th Foot occupying the village of Hal. As a result the 59th saw little fighting at Waterloo, the battalion suffering just 2 casualties (two other ranks wounded out of a total of 461 officers and men present at the start of the day). After Waterloo, however, the battalion took part in the assault on Cambrai, 24/6/1815, where the battalion lost 5 men, and was present on 5th July during the occupation of Paris.

Private Rabbitt was discharged on 24 April 1816 as a consequence of ‘rheumatism & varicose veins contracted on service in Walcheren’, after seeing 6 years and 342 days service with the 59th Foot, with 2 years additional service granted for Waterloo, making a total of 8 years and 342 days service towards a pension. Rabbitt was pensioned on 14/5/1816, Chelsea Pension Register recording him as being 46 years of age at the time of being granted a pension.

Rabbitt was not awarded a Military General Service Medal, despite having seen extensive service during the Peninsular campaign, presumably because he did not survive till 1847 when the medal was awarded to surviving veterans of the campaign, the Waterloo Medal being Rabbitt’s sole medal entitlement.

Medal also accompanied by 2 pages of copied militia service papers for a Private John Ryan of the Kildare Militia, who saw service with the Kildare Militia for 4 years and was discharged “on account of a wound he received in his leg in the action at Vinegar Hill”, Private Ryan being discharged on 18/9/1798