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RWIR medal recipients
His Majesty's Royal West India Rangers

Ten RWIR Medal Recipients
Medal with Guadeloupe and Martinique clasps "The Military General Service Medal was not issued until 1847 and the person had to be alive and claim his medal and clasps. When you consider that the events had taken place much earlier, you can imagine that many of the men were already dead, thus the medals are quite rare." (John Wright, 13 August 2005 e mail, QC Militaria).

Following is a list of the only ten RWIR to receive medals for campaigns in 1809 and 1810.

None were awarded to the 62 RWIR settlers in the Military Settlement of New Brunswick though two NB soldier-settlers were in the Rangers early enough and may have been present at the campaigns. Henry Bowmaster is believed to have passed away about 1830 (well before the 1847 first issue date), and this website has no information after 1819 regarding Patrick Lynch. Pvt Lynch would have been at least 65 when the medals were first awarded. 		Reverse depicts Victoria placing a victor's laurels on the Duke of Wellington and the words 'To the British Army'
Rank Given Name Surname Campaign clasp Campaign clasp
Private Edmund Bridgeman Guadeloupe
Private Richard Brown Guadeloupe
Private John Clarke Martinique Guadeloupe
Private Thomas Clarke Guadeloupe
Private William Foley Guadeloupe
Private James Goodridge Martinique Guadeloupe
Sergeant Edward Miles Guadeloupe
Drummer/Bugler Joseph Moss Guadeloupe
Private William Wilson Martinique Guadeloupe

Lieutenant George Dean Pitt Martinique Albuhera* Badajoz* Vittoria*


*"The last three clasps he earned later as a Captain & ADC on the Staff of the Army in Spain"
Courtesy of a 13-15 August 2005 e mail exchange with Stephen Lewis and John Wright of QC Militaria who then had the pictured medal in their stock. It once belonged to Lieutenant Fletcher of the Royal York Rangers. In early 2013 Jagermedals.com was selling Joseph Moss' medal. We thank them for their correction to his given name and rank. We had been unwittingly including a transcription error in Moss' entry as found in "Mullen's roll" (which is the original source of the above chart). Now corrected.

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