Watch List notes:

The Officer's 10 Clasp M.G.S. awarded to Major-General John Napper Jackson, 94th (Scotch Brigade) Foot and 99th (Lanarkshire) Foot, who started his military service at the age of just 9 years old, and saw varied service at many of the major battles and actions in Portugal, Spain and France. He later helped to foil an attempted mutiny on the high seas aboard the convict ship Somersetshire in 1842 near Cape Town whilst en route to Van Diemen's Land, comprising: Military General Service, 1793-1814, 10 clasps, Fuentes D'Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, Toulouse, with additional silver top bar engraved 'Peninsula' and top bar with reverse brooch pin (J. N. Jackson, Captn 94th Foot), rank 'Captn' carefully erased, officially re-impressed and corrected [see footnote] over faint 'Lieut', good very fine or better. John Napper Jackson was born in Dublin, Ireland, c. 1796 and began his army career as an Ensign with the 94th (Scotch Brigade) Foot on 1 July 1805 - at the age of just nine years old. Promoted to Lieutenant on 1 January 1806, he was only fourteen when he commenced four years of active service in the Peninsula between February 1810 and April 1814, during which time he was promoted to Captain on 28 February 1812. Throughout his service in the Peninsula he was present at some thirty battles and actions, including: the Siege of Cadiz, Lines of Torres Vedras, the siege and storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, the third Siege of Badajoz and storm of the castle by escalade, Fort China (in command of an escort of the third division), Nive, Nivelle and numerous others between. Having earnt himself a Military General Service Medal with ten clasps before the age of nineteen, and having served at the rank of Captain for roughly 2 years before the campaign's culmination, it is understandable that he might later have asked his medal (impressed as 'Lieut') to be re-impressed by the mint with the correct rank, as we see here. He served for a time on Half-Pay with the 43rd Light Infantry during 1822 before later joining the Light Company of the 99th (Lanarkshire) Foot on its formation in 1824 – already by this time an experienced fighting soldier with twenty years' service, and still only twenty nine years old. He went with the Regiment to Mauritius and Australia, where he acted in command for two years during Colonel Despard's absence in New Zealand. During this time he played a part in the suppression of an attempted mutiny aboard the convict ship Somersetshire in 1842, where soldiers of the 99th and 50th Regiments formed the guard. As recorded in his obituary in the Army and Navy Gazette: 'He was a passenger on board the convict ship Somersetshire, proceeding to re-join the 99th Regiment, then in Van Dieman's Land, when a mutiny broke out by a part of the guard [Private soldiers in the 99th Foot] conspiring with the convicts to take the vessel. Three of the soldiers implicated in this atrocious offence of murder etc. were convicted and transported for life.' Having put into Cape Town, the three soldiers of the 99th Foot (Agnew, Chisholm, Kelly) faced trial on board and were prosecuted by Lieutenant Colonel Jackson himself, to whom the plot had been leaked by the ship's cook, and all three were found guilty, the ringleader Agnew was initially sentenced to death by firing squad (but appears to have had this reduced to hard labour and imprisonment), and the others were placed in irons on board to continue to Van Dieman's Land for a life's sentence. Continuing, Jackson later commanded the 99th Regiment in Ireland and Aldershot where they gained a 'tremendous reputation' for smartness in dress and drill. Afterwards described by a fellow officer as 'Moltke of the Nines' he was seldom seen off the barrack square and never known to go on leave. He was for a time Colonel of the 3rd West India Regiment in 1862, before returning to become the Colonel of the 99th Regiment from 1863 until his death after a short illness at St Helier's, Jersey, on the 25th of January 1866, at the age of seventy two. He had previously been noted as a resident of Bath. Ex Glendining, 1970. (£6000-8000)