Crimean War Medal of William Davies

Crimean war (1854-5) medal awarded to Private William Davies, Coldstream Guards, with bars for the Siege of Sebastapol and the Battles of Balaklava and Inkerman.

William was born in the tiny Radnorshire (now part of Powys) village of Llanbister in 1828. He enlisted at Shrewsbury in 1851, aged 23, where his profession was given as 'laborer'. He must have been regarded as a promising recruit, since he was immediately accepted (in peacetime) to the Coldstream Guards, an elite infantry regiment, becoming number 3843 Private William Davies. After service in Bulgaria, the Guards landed with the rest of the British army in the Crimea in September 1854.

Despite emerging from all these actions unwounded, he contracted an illness (possibly scurvy) and was sent to the notorious military hospital of Scutari, Turkey. Despite the heroic efforts of Florence Nightingale, conditions in this hospital were appalling, and during January and February 1855 nearly 80% of those sent there died, mostly of diseases contracted at the hospital itself. William died on 11th February 1855, aged 26.

His medal was sent posthumously back to his family in his rural Welsh village.