Waterloo Medal 1815 Sam. Allan, 23rd Regiment Foot, R.W.F.

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Samuel Allan served in Captain Thomas Farmer’s No. 7 Company during the Waterloo Campaign, 

 

16-18 June 1815. The Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum records the following:
“It (the 23rd Regiment of Foot) then marched to Braine-le-Leud, arriving on the 17th and passed the night in torrential rain.

Wellington placed the bulk of his strength to the right of his line. 

 

This was fortunate for the 23rd Regiment as it suffered fewer casualties than those in the centre and on the left. Even so, it lost four officers and eleven men killed, and eight officers and seventy eight men wounded.

 

Early on the morning of 18th June 1815 the 23rd took up its position, in the second line, to the left of the Nivelles Road. In front of it was a battalion of the Guards. 

 

It deployed into line and the men were told to lay down as they were quickly under fire from French artillery on the road. The cannon fire killed Captain Thomas Farmer. 

 

The 23rd moved into the front line to replace the Guards battalion, withdrawn to give support at Hougoumont. It formed a square and remained in that formation all day, facing many attacks by French cavalry.

 

The Commanding Officer of the 23rd, Colonel Sir Henry Ellis commanded that no man should break rank, even to help a wounded comrade. 

 

The Regiment did not falter, even though the artillery fire continued. The square retired to its former position, then advanced again and the 23rd finished the day by advancing in line finding nothing to oppose it.” 

 

Tragically both his Captain, Captain Walker and his Officer Commanding, Sir Henry Walton Ellis KCB were mortally wounded and died soon afterwards. 

 

Continuing, another reference records: 
“After the Battle, the Regiment bivouacked with the rest of the Army at the now-famous La Belle Alliance inn, a few miles south of Brussells.

 

Over the next few days they marched to Mons, then to Valenciennes, then Cateau-Cambresis. On 24 June the regiment participated in the assault and capture of the besieged town of Cambrai. Dunn notably commanded the Ladder Party of the 23rd Fusiliers as they entered the citadel by an old breach near the Port de Paris, “on which occasion his brother officer 2nd Lieutenant Leebody on the same duty was killed.” 

From Cambrai the regiment marched towards Paris where they were present for the city’s capitulation on 4 July, pitching camp at the Bois de Boulogne. The following day they marched to Neuilly-sur-Seine.” 

 

Although Samuel Allan quite likely also saw some service during the Peninsular War the name Samuel Allan is NOT RECORDED on the medal roll for the Military General Service medal. 

 

The MGS medal was a retrospectively awarded medal and only those individuals who were alive in 1848 were eligible for the award of this medal.