dante Posted June 10, 2023 Posted June 10, 2023 Baltic medal “H Achilles” “HMS James Watt” Henry Achilles, born Heinrich Friedrich Christoph Achilles was born 7th May 1831, Housling, Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany, (though some archives have him from Braunschweig). Little is known of his early life but on the 18th of November 1845 he and 14 other musicians arrived in Hull from Hamburg abord the steamer “Queen of Scotland”. In 1852 we see him join the Royal Navy as a Bandsman aboard HMS James Watt a 91-gun steam and sail-powered second-rate ship of the line. launched on 23 April 1853 and commissioned at Plymouth in January 1854 by Captain George Elliot. The roll of the Bandsman was in times of battle assigned to magazine and handing room crews as well as Ammunition supply. They may have had additional tasks when mooring and unmooring ship, They were classed as "Idlers" which means they had no station aloft and were not part of a gun's crew. They also had no specific, very important job like Cook, Sailmaker, Carpenter's Crew etc. These latter were classed as "Working Idlers", they also played for the Captain and kept the ship's company in live music here and there. HMS James Watt served in the Baltic campaigns of 1854 and 1855 including In August 1855 Cronstadt, the Russian Baltic naval base; the minor long-range Crimean War engagement near the Tolbukhin lighthouse with the port's batteries and gunboats on 16 August 1855. In 1857 he left the Navy with his character noted as “very good” on discharge he moved to Devon then to Highbridge, Somerset. In 1859 he married Selina and started works at the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, Highbridge railway works as a painter. He retired after 37 years (his wife died some years earlier) and died in 1913 aged 82 and he is interned in St John's Church, Highbridge, Somerset. 1
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