Description
Turkish Crimea, Sardinian Issue, contemporarily engraved to Able Seaman John Gilder, HMS Queen, Royal Navy.
John Gilder, just a “Boy” when he first joined HMS Queen in 1853, saw service on the ship during the Crimean War.
Notably he was onboard during the Bombardment of Sebastopol, under command of Captain Frederick Thomas Mitchell.
During the war she was set on fire 3 times and eventually forced to withdraw from the action.
The famous “Timothy the Tortoise”, who only recently died at the ripe age of 160 years old in 2004, was the ship’s mascot of HMS Queen during the war.
Following this he rose the ranks on board HMS Brisk during her 2nd Commission of 1859-1863, joining this ship as a basic Able Seaman, he left as Captain of the Main Top.
During that period, he served on the Cape of Good Hope Station, taking part in anti-slavery patrols as well as searching for Dr Livingston on 15th September 1859 at the River Kongone.
Notably picking up survivors of the Barretto Junior which ran aground as well an excellent capture of the Clipper Ship Emanuela in the Mozambique Channel with more than 800 slaves on board.
The famous Clipper, one of the fastest in the seas built by the Americans as the “Sunny South”, was captured in a thrilling chase
See here:
https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/vessel/203608
Contemporarily hand engraved naming: “John. Gilder. A.B. H.M.S. Queen.”
Confirmed on the medal roll of HMS Queen for the British Crimean Medal.
Fitted with a ribbon suspension bar and on old piece of silk ribbon sewn to the medal.
With copy service papers.
John Gilder, was born in Windsor, Berkshire on 11th July 1836.
He saw the following service:
HMS Queen, 1st July 1853 – 27th June 1854, Boy 1st Class
HMS Queen, 28th June 1854 – 1st December 1855, Ordinary Seaman
HMS Melanpus, 2nd December 1855 – 2nd February 1856, Ordinary Seaman
HMS Queen, 3rd Feb 1856 – 15th Aug 1856, Ordinary Seaman
HMS Centurion, 16th August 1856 – 13th May 1857, Ord Seaman
HMS Centurion, 14th May 1857 – 4th Feb 1858, Able Seaman (A.B.)
HMS Brisk, 11th May 1859 – 29th April 1860, Able Seaman
HMS Brisk, 30th April 1860 – 31st March 1862, Leading Seaman
HMS Brisk, 1st April 1862 – 22nd August 1863, Captain of the Main Top
HMS Canopus, 23rd August 1863 – 26th August 1863, Captain of the Main Top.
Discharged to shore on 26th August 1863 at Plymouth “Apprentice Rigger in Dockyard”.
Later approved for Pension 28th June 1876.
His service in the Second Commission of HMS Brisk 1859-1863:
After almost two years in reserve, she was commissioned under Captain Algernon F.R. de Horsey for service on the Cape of Good Hope Station.
Apart from anti-slavery patrols, she also searched for Dr. Livingstone on 15 September 1859 at the River Kongone.
In November she picked up the survivors of the Barretto Junior which had run aground on Mayotte Reef while heading for Mayotte.
On 10 August 1860 she captured the clipper ship Emanuela in the Mozambique Channel with more than 800 slaves aboard. With Captain de Horsey becoming invalid due to illness, he was replaced with Captain John P. Luce, RN, and assigned to the West Coast of Africa on 24 February 1862.
She returned to Home Waters in 1863, paying off at Plymouth on 22 August.
THE CAPTURE OF THE EMANUELA
Built as the “Sunny South” in New York, USA, it was an Extreme Clipper, sold a few years later for 18000 Dollars to Havana during 1859, it would be one of just 3 American Clipper Ships known to be used in the slave trade, and would become the fastest slaver sailing out of Havana.
Clipper Ships were the fastest sailing ships of the 1850s, this ship was no exception.
However they did not expect to come across British Screw Sloop of War HMS Brisk in the open seas on 10th August 1860.
Wikipedia has an extensive section on the capture which reads:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_South_(clipper)#Capture_of_Emanuela
“At 11:30 am Brisk, under Captain Algernon de Horsey, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral the Hon. Sir Henry Keppel, K. C. B., was running to the northward in the Mozambique Channel when she sighted a ship in the haze with many sails set, which proceeded to change course as if attempting to avoid contact. Brisk made sail and steam, and reached a speed of 11 1/2 knots as she pursued Emanuela.[9] Even so, it was at least four hours later before she could draw close enough to fire a shot across Emanuela’s bow, board her, and take the slaver captain and officers into custody. Brisk then put into Pomoni in possession of Emanuela to make arrangements to replace the slaver crew with a prize crew.
The speed of this slave ship under sail was sufficiently memorable that years later, in a 1914 novel, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, Jack London had an old sailor character exclaim,
I was on the Emanuela that day in Mozambique Channel when Brisk caught us with nine hundred slaves between-decks. Only she wouldn’t ‘a’ caught us except for her having steam.
This comment concurs with the opinion of an eyewitness. The explorer John Hanning Speke was aboard Brisk as a passenger, and described the capture scene in The Discovery of the Source of the Nile. According to Speke, if the wind had been more favorable, Sunny South could have outsailed Brisk and escaped, despite Brisk having the advantage of an auxiliary steam engine.
Speke inspected the slave ship and bore witness in his writings regarding the appalling and inhumane conditions on board. When Speke boarded Manuela as she lay in Pomoni Harbor, he saw half-starved people below decks, mostly children, along with a few old women who lay dying in “the most disgusting ferret box atmosphere.” Other slaves who had the strength were ripping open the ship’s hatches and scrambling for the salted fish packed beneath.
The slaver’s voyage had been stopped in its first few days, and the 7-foot (2.1 m) slave deck had adequate ventilation. As a result, many of the slaves proved healthy despite their lack of food and the horrible stench of the ship. After the prize crew washed down the slave deck as best they could, the two ships proceeded to Mauritius.
According to Speke, the slaves he encountered were mostly from the Wahiyow tribe. They had been captured during local wars and sold to Arab traders, taken to the coast, and then taken to Manuela in dhows. The slaves were half starved because they had been kept for nearly a week without food while the traders negotiated their deal.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database says Emanuela picked up slaves at Quirimba on 10 August 1860. Of the 846 slaves who embarked, 105 died en route, and 741 arrived at the first place of landing. Over half were children (appx. 55%); appx. 87% male, 13% female. Of this number appx. 47% were boys, 40% men, 9% girls, and 5% women.
Author Charles Dickens, who paid a visit to Manuela six months after its capture, wrote that the ship still smelled horrible despite all attempts to disinfect it. He was told that the crew had been observed dumping Manuela’s logs and flag overboard shortly before being boarded.”
