Description

ADMIRALS COXWAIN WALTER GILBIE 1859-79 PRE WW1 ROYAL NAVY LONG SERVICE MEDAL

Offered is a Royal Navy Long Service and Good Conduct Medal (Q.V.), impressed named WALTR GILBIE ADMS COXN HMS VICTOR EMANUEL. Comes with copy service papers and newspaper article.

Admirals Coxwain Walter (William) Gilbie was born in February 1838, at Gravesend Kent. He entered the Royal Navy on 13/7/1859 as a Able Seaman, over the next 20 years he served on the following H.M. Ships and shore bases including Nile (a two-deck 90-gun second-rate ship of the line and Queenstown guardship), Sans Pareil (70-gun screw propelled ship of the line which replaced the Nile as the Queenstown guardship), Cambridge (triple-decker, 102-gun first- ship of the line, a gunnery ship off Plymouth).

H.M.S. Princess Royal (a 91-gun second rate ship of the line) 19/2/1864 – 25/3/1867, In 1865, Princess Royal conveyed Sir Harry Smith Parkes, accompanied by a detachment of Royal Marines, to the treaty port of Yokohama on his appointment as envoy to Japan.

HMS Princess Charlotte (104-gun first-rate ship of the line) 26/3/1867 – 30/11/1874 a receiving ship at Hong Kong. H.M.S. Victor Emmanuel (screw-propelled 91-gun second-rate ship of the line), 1/2/1874 – 12/7/1879 which was assigned to Hong Kong to replace HMS Princess Charlotte and used as a hospital and receiving ship there from 1873.

Admirals Coxwain 1/1/1873 until discharge.

Awarded his Long Service and Good Conduct Medal 1875.

He died in Portsmouth 22/3/1905.