Height: 17.5cm (7in)
Ormolu, iron and oak. Grapeshot raised on a wooden plinth with gilded bronze scroll feet and a plain banding inscribed ‘A Memorial from Sebastopol Presented by Captn. Francis Lambton Scots Fusilier Guards to Henry Betts October 7th 1856.’.
A good example of the battlefield relics brought home from the Crimea and mounted as campaign trophies through retail firms such as Vickery of Regent Street, London. After a tortuous winter in the Crimea, the Allies finally addressed the difficulties of supplying the frontline troops besieging Sebastopol with the completion of a railway supplied by the contractors Peto & Betts from the Allied base port of Balaclava in mid 1855. Thereafter the war was pushed on vigorously, and in September 1855, after a month’s incessant bombardment, the Malakoff and the Redan fortresses were taken by assault and Sebastopol fell. The Russians then destroyed the defences, evacuated the town leaving their sick and wounded behind them.
Colonel Francis William Lambton (1834-1921) was the third son of William Henry Lambton, brother of the 1st Earl of Durham. He was commissioned into the Scots Fusilier Guards, and served in the Crimea from 1854 to the fall of Sebastopol in September 1855. He was awarded the Ottoman Order of Medjedie in 1858 but had to wait until 1908 before receiving permission to wear the insignia from Edward VII. Lambton married Lady Victoria Alexandrina Elizabeth Campbell , eldest daughter of the 2nd Earl of Cawdor in 1866, and had 8 children. The family divided their time between their London residence at 45 Cadogan Place, Chelsea, and the Campbell estate of Brownslade in Pembrokeshire. Lambton was both a magistrate and high sheriff of the county. In 1902 he entertained Edward VII, Queen Alexandra and Princess Victoria at Brownslade.