The Royal Green Jackets Association
The Royal Green Jackets Association
A Crimean Veteran Returns Home to his Medals and his Family By Keith Smith Being very much an amateur collector and researcher, I have thought myself lucky at times to be able to re-unite historic family items with the current descendants of those originally involved. I once owned a Military General Service Medal of a 13th Light Dragoon, who had served in the Peninsular War and Waterloo. David Westall was born in rural Oxfordshire but after meeting a girl on Tyneside (during a recruiting drive after Waterloo) he left the army (without a pension) and moved to North Shields with his new wife. Here he became a successful coal merchant, although I do wonder about the undoubted clash of regional accents! He lived to the age of 87 and made the news in the local press on his death in 1873. My research led to the discovery that one of his Great Grandchildren (Robert Westall) in the 1970’s had become a very successful children’s author. Sadly he had died in 1993 and his only child had been killed earlier in a motorcycle accident. There is at least one street in the area named after him. It looked as if my investigations had come to an end. I wanted to know if his Waterloo medal still existed somewhere. Then out of the blue I was contacted by a direct descendant, who knew less about the old veteran than I did. What was clear was that it was not known how or when the MGS medal went out of the family and the same with the Waterloo award, which has never been located. He asked if he could have it back for the family. In these circumstances I was happy to return it to its rightful home.
Detail of painting of Frederick Charles Evelegh and the despatch rolled up and hidden in quill
Swift & Bold Journal 2018
Swift & Bold Journal 2018
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