*DIED* 1855 CRIMEAN WAR MEDAL ALMA INKERMANN SEBASTOPOL COLLIER 47TH FOOT ARMY

Offered is a Crimean Medal to Private James Colliers, who died at Scutari on 4/7/1855, having served with the 47th (Lancashire) Regiment of Foot

Crimean Medal (1854 – 56), with 3 clasps, ALMA, INKERMAN, SEBASTOPOL, impressed named J. COLLIER. 47^TH REGT. Medal practically as struck, with only very light wear. Comes with copies medal rolls.

Private James Colliers records have not been located as of this date; however, he appears on the Muster Rolls 08/02/1851-31/03/1851 as being at Corfu, Ionian Islands with the 47^th Regiment of Foot. The regiment was posted to the Ionian Islands in 1850 and to Malta in 1853, in April 1854 they sailed from Malta, staging through Scutari and Varna and landed in Calamity Bay (Crimea) on 14/954  as part of the 2nd Division.

The Alma. The Russians were in a strong entrenched position covering the River Alma. A frontal attack was ordered, across the river and up a slope to capture the enemy redoubts. The 2nd Division advanced and forded the river in the face of sixteen enemy guns and six infantry battalions. The 47th moved forward in the column to take the high ground on the Russians’ left flank and the Russians withdrew. Casualties of the 47th Regiment at the Alma amounted to 4 killed (including two escorts to the Colours) and 65 wounded.

Inkerman: In the misty early morning the Russians made a determined sortie from Sevastopol, their immediate objective being the Heights of Inkerman and the unsuspecting 2nd Division. The divisional picquets that morning on the forward edge of the Heights included two companies of the 47th commanded. The picquets stood their ground while the rest of the division got underarms. The rest of the 2nd Division and others were joining the battle piecemeal, including the remaining companies of the 47th. Visibility was very poor and coordinated control almost impossible, so the battle was fought out at close quarters, often with the bayonet. The Battle of Inkerman, ‘the soldiers’ battle’, cost the 47th 19 dead and 47 wounded.

Siege of Sevastopol was maintained over the winter 1854 -55. As well as the lack of warm clothing, Cholera was rife in the Army as well as the usual wounds and exposure.

Collier was possibly involved in the attack on 7/6/1856 when the enemy’s advanced works were stormed. Eight officers and 300 men of the 47th commanded by Major Villiers, were part of the force which captured the Russian position known as the Quarries in fierce fighting and held it against repeated counter-attacks.

At some stage Collier was evacuated to Scutari for an unknown reason where he died on 4/7/1855. At Scutari During the winter 1854-5, 4,077 soldiers died there, ten times more from illnesses such as typhus, typhoid, cholera and dysentery, than from battle wounds. A sanitary commission, sent out by Palmerston's government in March 1855, almost six months after Nightingale's arrival at Scutari, flushed out the sewers and improved the ventilation, thereby dramatically reducing the mortality rate.