A Crimean war medal with Australian provenance.

State Records, the public records office ('the archives') of South Australia, is the repository of all official records of the State and within its holdings, among the thousands of documents of governance and bureaucracy, are found the occasional little gem; the unexpected, the unlikely, even the unknown. (1) One of the regular researchers--coincidentally a subscriber to Sabretache--discovered, among the correspondence files of the Sheriff's Office (Correctional Services), an artefact that has proved to be a most interesting link with a British Army detachment stationed in Adelaide in the 1860's. (2)

The artefact is a silver Crimea campaign medal with the bar Sebastopol, awarded to a John McEntire of the 13th Regiment of Foot. The issue of the Crimea Medal to the British Army was authorised in December 1854 (while the war was in progress) with the bars 'Inkerman' and 'Alma'. Additional bars were later authorised for 'Balaklava', 'Sebastopol' and, for the Royal Navy, 'Azoff'. The medal ribbon, missing on the McEntire medal, is of pale blue silk with narrow yellow edges. (3)

The reason behind the related correspondence is perhaps more interesting than the artefact itself. The letter was received in the Sheriff's Office from the Deputy Keeper of the Adelaide Gaol who on 22 February 1881 wrote:

   Sir,

   I forward herewith a silver Medal found by Prisoner Hickey in the
   night soil deposited in the Olive Plantations.

   I respectfully request that it be forwarded to the Pensions Office
   so that it may be returned to the owner--and a reward of a few
   shillings given to the Prisoner Hickey.

   I have &c.

   Henry Pellew, Deputy Keeper.

The letter was forwarded the next day but the reply from Mr Clark, Paymaster of the Pensions Office (the office that administered pensions to British ex-military and naval personnel who had migrated to South Australia), dated 24 February, was quick, brief and negative:

   Retained to Mr Boothby [Comptroller of Convicts]. There is no such
   person on my pension lists. I therefore return the medal.

It is well recorded that the 13th Regiment did not serve in South Australia nor in any of the other Australian colonies. The fact that McEntire's name did not appear in the Pension Office lists does not mean that he wasn't in South Australia at some time; it simply means that at the time he was not a resident of South Australia entitled to a British Army pension. So who or where was John McEntire? Initial checks in the South Australian Directories held by State Records showed no-one of that name, while the Biographical Index of South Australians (4), also in the Netley Search Room reference collection, was similarly mute.

Enquiries directed to the UK Public Records Office in Kew generated a reply from the PRO's Military Specialist, William Spencer, containing much information about McEntire and establishing the South Australian provenance of the medal. The material was found in the regimental muster and pay lists in the record series WO12. Mr Spencer's letter reads:

   John McEntire was born in Glasgow and joined the army on 6 February
   1854. On 20 September 1854 he joined the 13th Foot, the
   Somerset Light Infantry. Although no details concerning his age are
   mentioned in the musters, he was 5' 4 3/4" on enlistment.

   Serving with the 13th in the Crimea for which he was awarded the
   Crimea Medal with Sebastopol clasp, John McEntire transferred to
   the 50th Foot on 1 May 1856.

   John McEntire served with the 50th Foot until 7 December 1868 when
   he deserted in Adelaide.

   John McEntire was tried by Court Martial once, for an unknown
   offence, but at the time of the trial he was a Corporal and on being
   found guilty was reduced to Private. Just prior to his desertion he
   had been deprived of a weeks pay. (5)

This immediately places McEntire and his medal in South Australia in the late 1860's and perhaps explains why McEntire doesn't appear in the SA Directories in the late 1870's--early 1880's. But what happened after his desertion? The fact that McEntire deserted (was losing a week's pay the final incentive to desert?) meant that the search could continue. Sure enough, the South Australian Police Gazette (6) of 9 December 1868, p.3 contains the entry:

   Deserted from the 50th Regiment of Foot, at Adelaide,
   8th December, 1868--4722, Private John McEntire; age,
   31 10/12 years; size, 5ft. 9 1/2 in.; color of complexion, pale;
   hair, light; eyes, blue; enlisted at Glasgow, February 6th, 1865;
   born in Drumkirk, county Tyrone; no marks; trade, tanner;
   dressed in regimentals; since found on the Park Lands.

It will be seen that there are a number of anomalies between this entry and the information found in the WO12 series in London; Private McEntire has grown 4 3/4 inches, Glasgow is given as his place of enlistment, not his birthplace, while his birthplace here is given as Drumkirk, County Tyrone (Ireland). So is he a Scot or an Irishman? At least we now have an age, which suggests he was just about 17 years of age when he enlisted, and it is not impossible that a 17 year old could grow 4 inches or more over the next few years to adulthood.

The particularly interesting part in his record is that he transferred to the 50th (Queen's Own) Regiment of Foot, because it is in this regiment that the local provenance is made. Three companies of the 50th Foot (in excess of 250 officers and men as at 1 November 1867 (7)) were stationed in Adelaide, arriving from New Zealand in August 1867 (8). Private McEntire deserted in December 1868 and by the time the 50th left to return to England on 1 April 1869 (9) he had still not been found. His regiment had been relieved by a detachment of the 14th Foot arriving from Van Diemen's Land on 23 March 1869 and, about 3 weeks after his regiment had sailed away, McEntire was apprehended by the police. He was subsequently handed over to the incoming military authorities, tried by Court Martial and sentenced to 56 days imprisonment with Hard Labour in Adelaide Gaol (10). He served his time and appears to have had no further brushes with either the military or civil law. After his release he appears on the muster lists and rolls of the 14th Regiment (11) and, although further research is required, it seems that Pte. McEntire returned to England with the 14th when that regiment was recalled in January 1870. It is interesting to see on the rolls that McEntire (and others who for one reason or another were separated from 'their' regiment) was listed as being '50th Regt. attached' rather than being taken on the strength of the later regiment.

Prisoner Hickey, the original finder of the medal, has proved difficult to identify, primarily became his term of imprisonment would be recorded in Volume 'G' of the Adelaide Gaol Registers, (12) the one register in the series that is missing! The index to that particular register shows three prisoners by the name of Hickey in Adelaide Gaol over a two or three year period embracing the date when the medal was found (13). He may be Richard (one of four aliases), John or Daniel, but until the register is located he remains in obscurity!

Disregarding the obviously unpleasant process of fertilising the olive frees by the prisoners, how did the medal get into the night soil? Was it accidentally 'lost' during McEntire's service in the colony? It is unlikely that it would have been lost in the prison latrines as his possessions were probably token from him and stored by the military prior to his removal to gaol. Also, it seems that the night soil came not only from the prison latrines but also from one or more municipal collections. This latter statement is perhaps supported by the following comment:

   Most houses, offices and institutions had a privy connected to a
   cess pit ... These ... were emptied by "nightmen" ... loaded on
   open drays and deposited in the olive groves near the gaol. (14)

Among the many theories propounded by colleagues in discussing the incident is that McEntire may have dropped his medal in the parklands (where according to the Police Gazette notice his 'regimentals' were found). Perhaps he divested himself of his regimental dress among the olive plantations near the prison, dropping the medal in the process where it then lay undisturbed until it was actually raked up in the process of spreading the night soil more than 12 years later?

The medal remains in the original docket, now housed in an archivally sound protective enclosure, available for other researchers to view though now under added security.

(1) This article was published in the April 2002 edition of recordSArchives, the official newsletter of State Records of South Australia. This slightly modified version is reproduced by kind permission of the Department for Administrative and Information Services.

(2) State Records (SR), GRG (Government Record Group) 54/1/1881 No.95.

(3) Ribbons and Medals, H. Taprell Dorning (Ed. Alec A. Purvis), Osprey Publishing, London, 1983.

(4) Biographical Index of South Australians (Ed. Jill Statton), SA Genealogy & Heraldry Soc. Inc, Marden, 1986.

(5) WO12/3071 and 6162 for 1st & last entries. Other details from other musters for the 13th Foot, 1854-56 and the 50th Foot, 1856-1868.

(6) SR GRG5/50.

(7) SR GRG24/51 No.148.

(8) Register newspaper, 10.8.1867 (Mortlock Library, State Library of SA).

(9) ibid, 2.4.1869.

(10) SR GRS (Government Record Series) 2414/1/P, Vol. 'D', 1864-1871.

(11) WO12 Muster Rolls & Pay Lists, AJCP microfilms, Central Library, Flinders University.

(12) SR GRS2414/1/P.

(13) SR GRS2749/1/P, Vol.2.

(14) Community History, Vol. 11 No.3, October 2001. History Trust of South Australia.