Five: Rear-Admiral F. A. B. Craufurd, Royal Navy Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clas...

Five: Rear-Admiral F. A. B. Craufurd, Royal Navy Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Syria (F. A. B. Craufurd, Midshipman.); Crimea 1854-56, 2 clasps, Sebastopol, Azoff (Captain F. A. B. Craufurd, Royal Navy.); Ottoman Empire, Order of the Medjidie, Fifth class breast badge, silver, gold and enamel; St. Jean d’Acre 1840, silver, unnamed as issued, a contemporary cast copy; Turkish Crimea 1855, Sardinian issue, unnamed as issued, contact marks, otherwise generally very fine or better (5) £1,600-£2,000 --- Provenance: Sotheby 1899; Spink, May 1998 (NGS, Crimea, and Medjidieh only). Frederick Augustus Buchanan Craufurd was born on 16 March 1822, in Rome, the second son of the six children of John Craufurd of Auchinames and Crosby, county Ayr. He entered the Navy on 26 June 1836, aged 14 years, on board the Imogene 28 guns Captain Henry William Bruce, with whom he served for upwards of three years, as a Volunteer and Midshipman on the South American station. In December 1839 he joined, as Midshipman, the Benbow 72 guns, Captain Houston Stewart, attached to the force in the Mediterranean as part of a powerful joint British, Austrian and Turkish force operating off the coast of Syria, where Egyptian forces under Ibrahim Pasha had driven out the Turks. In that year he participated in all of the operations on the coast of Syria, where he was present at the bombardment of Beyrout on 10 September, the attack on Tortosa and the siege of Acre. It was at 1 o'clock in the afternoon of 4 November 1840 - the sea breeze having set in steady - that the Princess Charlotte 104 guns (Admiral Stopford) led the bombardment of Acre from the north, with Benbow in the Southern division attacking from the south, being played into battle by a piper on the foredeck. After a cannonade of two hours, a shell from either the Gorgon or the Benbow blew the grand powder magazine which exploded at 4 p.m. with terrible effect, many unfortunate Egyptians being blown up and many more buried in the ruins where they died of starvation. The bombardment continued until dusk and during the night the Governor of Acre abandoned the town, taking the remainder of the garrison with him. The capture of Acre ended nearly three months of naval operations off the coast of Syria. On 15 January 1841, Midshipman Craufurd was officially mentioned for his conduct in an affair with the enemy near Ascalon, whilst serving ashore as an extra Aide de Camp to General Michel. For these services he eventually received the Syrian medals when issued some six years later. In June 1842, now holding the rank of Mate, he studied on board the gunnery ship Excellent at Portsmouth (Captain Sir Thomas Hastings) entered the Royal Naval College in 1842 and was rewarded on 28 June 1843 with a Lieutenants commission for having passed the best examination. He also held a certificate of proficiency in steam navigation. He was then appointed on 19 October 1843 as gunnery officer to the Fox 42 guns, carrying the broad pennant of Sir Henry Martin Blackwood in the East Indies. His next appointment was on 21 May 1847, to the Pilot 16 guns (Captain George Knyvett Wilson) in which he returned to England and was paid off on 23 September 1847. On the following 30 November he went to the Inconstant 36 guns (Captain John Shepherd) which was fitting out at Devonport, but he was only there for 17 days before joining the Hydra 6 guns (Captain Grey Skipworth), a paddlewheel steam sloop, on 18 December 1847 as senior. He served on her for about two years on the South East Coast of America. It was while in Hydra at Rio de Janeiro, where the vessel was for 12 months the Senior Officers ship, that Mr. Craufurd - with his knowledge of the Portuguese and Spanish languages - was the means of reopening to Her Britannic Majesty's mission sources of information which led to the capture of the most formidable of the Brazilian slavers. Among these was the notorious steamer Providentia, which was blockaded for nine months by the Hydra and ultimately captured by the Rifleman steamer (Lieut. Commander Croften). Two other vessels fell prizes to the Hydra herself while a fourth, driven onshore, was boarded and destroyed by the boats under Mr. Craufurd, who rescued 353 slaves through a heavy surf, an arduous service in the execution of which he and three of his seamen were wounded. On the Hydra being paid off at Chatham on 15 February 1850, the order and discipline on board was highly praised by the Commander in Chief, the Hon. George Elliot. On 17 July 1850, Craufurd was given command of the Alban 4 guns, a paddlewheel steamer of some 200 h.p. and tender to the Imaum, the receiving ship at Jamaica. It was in this vessel, which he took with difficulty (by reason of bad weather and a small and inefficient crew) to the West Indies, he performed much valuable detached and other service. He received the public thanks of the inhabitants of Kingston, Jamaica, for his extraordinary zeal and exertions during the prevalence of cholera on that island in October 1850. Also he received the thanks of the American government for his efforts in saving the crew of an American vessel wrecked on the Serranilla reef in August 1851. In October of the same year, with all his engineers but one being sick in hospital, he volunteered and did engineers duty in the engine room, for the purpose of enabling the Alban to proceed to sea with despatches of consequence for Port au Prince on the island of Haiti. For his zeal on this occasion he was complemented by the Commander in Chief, Sir George Seymour. On 19 July 1852, he was appointed as acting commander of the Rosamond 6 guns, a steamer of 280 hp., which he brought home from the West Indies, and paid off at Woolwich on 1 December 1852. Whilst in command of the Rosamond, Lieutenant Craufurd cruised for six weeks round the islands of San Domingo and Cuba on a mission of a delicate nature, of which he acquitted himself with his usual success. During this sojourn in the West Indies he obtained the unqualified approbation of Commodores Thomas Bennett and Peter McQuhae for ‘the readiness, the talent, and the zeal’ he displayed on all occasions. Valuable information collected by him during his command of the Rosamond procured him a letter of thanks from the Hydrographer of the Admiralty, Sir Francis Beaufort - later to become famous for his measurement of wind force, the Beaufort Scale. Possibly, this work of a delicate nature was the work of obtaining soundings and plotting bearings thereby compiling charts of the waters around the islands of San Domingo and Cuba, the Hydrographer being the person responsible for charts for the Navy. His next appointment on 31 October 1853 was to the Princess Royal 90 guns (Captain Lord Clarence Edward Paget), a screw ship equipping at Portsmouth. He was promoted to the rank of Commander, from the Princess Royal on 10 January 1854. On 16 August 1854, he was appointed to captain the Swallow 9-32 pdr. guns, a wooden screw vessel of 60 h.p, in which he sailed for the Black Sea, where he assisted in blockading the Straits of Kertch, and on the 13 March 1855, obtained a mention for his conduct in the attack on the fortress of Soujak Kale. After the fall of Kertch on 24 May, the Swallow under Cmdr. Craufurd entered the Sea of Azoff with the steam flotilla, under the command of Captain Edmund Moubray Lyons, who on the 27 of the month detached him together with Wrangler to command the entrance to the Putrid Sea at Genitchi. On the evening of the 28 he was joined by the rest of the force under Captain Lyons. During the interval he had succeeded in capturing or destroying all the vessels outside the channel leading into the Putrid Sea, but a great number had already passed through. He was dispatched on the morning of the 29 wit...