Single Campaign Medals 769


Naval General Service 1793-1840, 2 clasps, Copenhagen 1801, Endymion Wh President (Geo. V. Oughton Purser.) good very fine


£12,000-£15,000 Provenance: Downies & Sherwood, Melbourne, Australia, October 2002.


Note: Another medal, fraudulently named to ‘G. V. Oughton, Purser’, with the single clasp for ‘Endymion Wh President’, was sold at Glendining’s in November 1922 (identified as a ‘Fraud’ by E. E. Needes in his comprehensive records). It was sold again by Sotheby in January 1977, and was offered finally by Spink in July 2009 as part of the late Lee Bishop Collection (scratch marks to edge overall), on which occasion it was withdrawn from sale as a fraud.


George Voller Oughton was born on 29 March 1782, the youngest of three boys, and christened 22 September 1789, at South Hayling, Hampshire. His surname was originally spelled Outon, though he increasingly preferred to use Oughton as he rose in the Navy, and in 1818 he definitively adopted the spelling Oughton. His unusual middle name was probably a compliment to the Voller family, who also lived in South Hayling around that time. George learned reading, writing and arithmetic, probably at a local school, an investment which proved to be pivotal to his future life.


His mother died on 14 March 1794. On 25 July 1796 his father remarried, likely to a relative of his first wife, as they both shared the same maiden name. In October 1797 George’s half-brother was baptised at Rumboldswhyke, on the outskirts of Chichester, Sussex. In 1800 Oughton entered the Navy and was drafted to the 74-gun H.M.S. Achille. Her Captain, George Murray, was a prominent Chichester citizen, who later became Lord Mayor of Chichester. Having no experience of the sea, Oughton was rated as Landsman, the lowest class of adult on board. On 28 February 1801 Achille’s Captain and some of her people, including Oughton, were transferred to the 74-gun H.M.S. Edgar, which had a reputation as a crack line-of-battle ship. Oughton’s rating was raised to Ordinary Seaman, acknowledging that he had begun to learn the skills of a sailor.


Wounded at the Battle of Copenhagen


Captain Murray’s transfer was intended to strengthen the capabilities of the imminent Baltic Expedition, which targeted Denmark, Sweden and Russia. In 1791 Murray had carried out a survey and mapping of the treacherously shallow approaches to Copenhagen harbour, and later on served under Nelson in the Mediterranean. In 1801, the Danish warships defending Copenhagen were moored in a line close to shore, as floating gun batteries. Captain Murray was given the task of leading Vice-Admiral Nelson’s line-of-battle ships into Copenhagen harbour, using the deeper channels whose position he had helped to fix ten years earlier. After hasty checks had been made to verify that these channels had not dramatically shifted over time, on 1 April 1801 Murray took Edgar down the Outer Channel and anchored during the night. At dawn on 2 April he got Nelson’s battle line underway again, then turned north to skirt the Middle Ground shoal. As Edgar sailed up the Inner (King’s) Channel, she was fired on by a Danish warship, a powerful two deck ‘defence- ship’. Agamemnon, the ship immediately behind Edgar, became stranded as she approached the turning point, and all the successive ships further down the battle line each had to manoeuvre carefully around her. Two more of Nelson’s battle ships ran aground on the Middle shoal. Edgar passed four Danish vessels before anchoring close to Jyyland, another powerful 50-gun two-decker. Captain Murray had to fight unsupported for some time. 31 of his crew were killed and well over 100 wounded. Edgar’s Muster roll shows that Oughton was aboard for this close-quarter duel. In his own record of services, which he wrote in 1851, he notes that “I was slightly wounded at the Battle of Copenhagen.”


In the aftermath of the attack on Denmark, Murray was appointed Commodore in charge of a detached squadron of seven ships-of-the- line and ordered to patrol off Karlskrona to discourage the Swedish navy, while Nelson took the rest of the Baltic Fleet to Revel (now Tallinn) to intimidate the Russians. Commodore Murray hoisted his broad pennant in the 98-gun H.M.S. London. By the summer of 1801, the Baltic Expedition had achieved its objectives and its ships and senior officers began to be re-deployed. Nelson and Murray were recalled to England to take up shore-based responsibilities. As Captain Murray was preparing to leave the Baltic, Oughton was transferred into H.M.S. London, and, after a month, was appointed Midshipman at the end of August 1801. This was a significant step, as it transformed an ordinary seaman into a person of officer status and privilege (but not yet officer rank). A midshipman did not become a real officer until he had passed an arduous examination and received a Lieutenant’s commission from the Admiralty, a process which normally took at least five years. Consequently, persons wishing to become officers usually went to sea at the age of 13 -14. While there were midshipmen who were in their twenties, these were generally persons who for one reason or another had failed to pass as Lieutenants but still clung to the hope that it might be possible for them to become one, and who accepted the precarious life and status of an under-officer who was appointed (and could be removed) at a Post-Captain’s pleasure.


Captain Murray must have had much to do with Oughton’s appointment as Midshipman, probably due to the Chichester connection and to the fact that Oughton was far better educated than most sailors. Peace with France was imminent, which meant that large numbers of ships and sailors would no longer be required. Luckily for Oughton, he remained employed during the peace (unemployed commissioned officers received half-pay from the Admiralty, unemployed midshipmen received nothing). In December 1802 he accepted a transfer as Captain’s Clerk into H.M.S. Amazon, a smart 38-gun frigate which had distinguished itself at Copenhagen. Amazon’s Captain, William Parker, had himself only just joined the ship. On 5 July 1803, Amazon being briefly in port, Oughton married Sophia Searley at Portsea, Hampshire. One of his shipmates also married in the same church, three days later.


Mr George Voller Oughton, Acting Purser of H.M.S. Bittern and ‘Boat Service’ warrior


After the resumption of hostilities, as Captain’s Clerk, Oughton would have stayed discreetly close to Parker on the quarterdeck when Amazon captured the 16-gun privateer Felix on 26 July 1803, and during an encounter with the French fleet off Cape Capet on 2 May 1804. His duties in action included noting times, orders issued and events that would be included in the captain’s official letters. Amazon belonged to Nelson’s Mediterranean Fleet. In August 1804,


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