Description
Crimea Medal, bar Sebastopol, Robert Loder, 1st Battalion 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, wounded in action at Sebastopol by a gunshot to the right leg.
Officially re-impressed naming: “ROBt LOADER 1st 23rd REGt.” Sebastopol bar loose on ribbon.
Confirmed on the medal roll, which records that he earned the Sebastopol clasp which was sent to him separately on 12th August 1863, which matches why the loose bar is slipped on the ribbon.
4102 Private Robert Loder, 23rd Regiment of Fusiliers, was born in Aston, Bampton, Oxfordshire, circa 1835.
The 1851 Census lists him as a 16 year old Agricultural Labourer, the son of William and Letitia Loder, his father’s occupation shown as: “Pauper, former Ag Labourer”, they lived at Cote House in the hamlet of Astone and Cote in Bampton, Witney, Oxon.
As they lived at Cote House, Robert (16) and his younger brother James (14), both worked as Agricultural Labourers, likely at Cote House Farm which produced Cider at the time.
He first attested for service at Oxford for the regiment aged 19 on 15th May 1854 during the Crimean War.
He was sent overseas and would spend 6 months in Crimea.
He served in the Siege of Sebastopol and having received a musket ball in the leg, was likely invalided home. From his medical discharge it reads that the wound did not heal well and got worse, necessitating his discharge.
He was discharged at Chatham on 26th August 1856 as no longer fit for duty, due to his wounds, the Surgeon’s report reads:
“Adherent cicatry of a leg, often on the right leg, which has previously been wounded in the Crimea by a musket ball, the present disability was caused by severe inflammation having expanded upon the section of the original wound which had swollen and….”
Following his discharge he returned back home to Aston, and married a local girl called Ann from Bampton, he got back to work as an Agricultural Labourer, and by 1871 lived in Aston Square with his wife and 6 Children.
He died in Oxfordshire on 29th October at Littlemore. Death notice in the Oxford Journal 6th November 1880 reads;
“DEATHS
Oct 29, at Littlemore, Mr Robert Loder, formerly steward at Vincent’s Club, High Street, aged 45.”
Vincent’s Club, is an exclusive private club primarily for Oxford Blues at Oxford University, founded in 1863 by oarsman Walter Bradford Woodgate.
