Overall 7.7cm (3in) x 5.4cm (2.1in)
Transfer-printed enamel plaque. Head and shoulders uniformed portrait of Admiral George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, KB, within a copper gilt bezel mount with sudspension loop.
Admiral Sir George Brydges Rodney (1718-1792) was the son of a impecunious captain of marines, but was apparently a godson of King George I, and the Duke of Chandos. On leaving Harrow aged 14, he entered the Navy as a King’s Letter Boy Volunteer. He served in the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the American War of Independence, and became widely known for his victory over the French at the 1782 Battle of the Saintes, where he used the tactic of breaking the enemy line aka ‘Crossing the T’. He relieved Gibraltar during the Great Siege and defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1780). He was regarded as being obsessed with prize money and was heavily criticized or his actions in taking Saint Eustatius. Moreover the Government feared he would provoke a war with Spain to line his pockets. In 1782, Rodney was ennobled as Baron Rodney of Stoke-Rodney.