Lot 2327

Description

Trio to Immigrant to Australia: Baltic Medal 1854-55; Crimea War Medal 1854-56 - two clasps - Azoff, Sebastopol; Turkish Crimea Medal 1855-56 (Sardinia issue). Chas. Hunt, Boy 1 Cl., H.M.S.Stromboli. on first medal, Chas. Hunt, Ord., H.M.S. Stromboli. on second medal, last medal unnamed as issued. The named medals impressed. Some contact marks, otherwise very fine.

Ex Noble Numismatics Sale 49 (lot 4232).
Charles Hunt was born in 1836 at Shirley, Hampshire, England. At 12 years of age he stowed away on a ship but the Captain was a friend of his father and returned him home on the ship's return. He sought his father's permission to go to Australia in 1850 but this was refused and eventually he got his permission to join the Royal Navy. He was drafted on the HMS Neptune where he became a proficient signaller and was placed as a signaller on the HMS Stromboli, a paddle-wheel sloop of war on which he served in the war against Russia and was involved in attacks on Russian forts in the Baltic and Crimea. In 1857 Hunt left the Royal Navy as a Petty Officer and in the 1860s he sailed for Victoria in Australia and then in the 1890s he moved to Western Australia. In 1915 at an annual veterans' dinner held in Perth he was the only representative of the British fleet that operated in the Crimea and he gave an interview of his experiences.
With a part original cutting and a full computer print-out of newspaper article from the Perth 'Swan Express' dated Friday May 28, 1915 in which the recipient is interviewed and recounts his life as well as his war experiences of sixty years before.