Medals awarded to the 11th Hussars trumpeter said to have sounded the Charge of the Light Brigade are to be sold by specialist London coins and medals auctioneers Morton & Eden on June 10. The four medals, including the British Crimea War Medal with clasps for the battles at Alma, Balaclava, Inkermann and Sebastopol, are expected to sell for £10,000-15,000.
Trumpeter William Smith was one of the brave “Six Hundred” who rode into the “Valley of Death” on October 25 1854 at the height of the Battle of Balaclava. He was one of the fortunate few who survived to tell the tale and indeed wrote his own poem about the incident.
William Smith was born in 1822 and enlisted into the 3rd Light Dragoons on February 22, 1836.Two years later he went with the regiment to the North West Frontier, taking part in the advance on Kabul and being present at various engagements with Afghan tribesmen. He was in action again against the Punjab Sikhs in 1845-46, and in the 2nd Sikh War of 1848-49. He returned to England with medals for Kabul, 1842,; Sutlej, 1845-46 (with two clasps), and the Punjab War, 1849 (also with two clasps). He transferred to the 11th Hussars as trumpeter in June 1853 and was promoted to Trumpet-Major after the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade, in 1856. He received the British medal for the Crimea (clasps: Alma, Balaclava, Inkermann, Sebastopol), the Turkish Crimea Medal and finally an Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.
After his discharge, Smith and his wife Mary Jane lived at Freehold Terrace, Love Lane, Knutsford and in 1863 he became Trumpet-Major to the Earl of Chester’s Cheshire Yeomanry. He retired eventually in 1874 and became Crier at the Quarter Sessions held at Chester and Knutsford. He was also manager of Knutsford Gentlemen’s Club and became a well-known local figure who was regularly heard singing at local recitals, functions and entertainments. His poem, dated “Balaclava Heights, 1854”, never rivalled Tennyson’s famous work in popularity, although it did appear in the XIth Hussars Journal in January 1912. Trumpet-Major Smith attended the first Balaclava Banquet in 1875 and was a member of the Balaclava Commemoration Society.
In early November 1879 he went on a brandy-drinking spree, which seemed to make him depressed. He was often troubled with colds, and on November 15, he informed a number of people that they would never see him again, before sending a friend to the chemist to buy laudanum, a strong opium-based sedative, which he said was to make a cough mixture. He withdrew £15 from the bank to cover his debts in the town and drank the potion during the course of the afternoon. He began to show the effects in the early evening, but by the time it was realised what he had done and a doctor had been sent for, it was too late. He died on November 16, 1879, aged 57.
An inquest held at the White Bear Hotel in Knutsford found that he had died of “Apoplexy, probably accelerated by laudanum, taken while he was in an unsound state of mind”. He was buried in Knutsford Parish Churchyard. A portrait of him hangs in Knutsford Library. It shows him with six medals, of which two are now missing. In 1951, a plaque was placed on his former home, in what is now called Stanley Road. It reads: “Trumpet-Major William Smith, 1822-1879, who sounded the charge at Balaclava, lived here.” This road was formerly known as Love Lane.
Who really sounded the Charge of the Light Brigade has always been a point of controversy. It is likely that Smith did sound the Charge as was later claimed – but equally likely that it passed largely unnoticed in view of the intense noise, dust, cannon fire and confusion which confronted the “Six Hundred” as they prepared to ride into the “Valley of Death”.
In addition to the British Crimea War Medal, which has officially impressed naming, the group to be sold includes the Sutlej Campaign Medal with clasps for Ferozeshuhur and Sobraon; the Punjab Campaign Medal with clasps for Goojerat and Chilianwala, and the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.
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