Medals from Charge of the Light Brigade travel 11,000 miles for presentation

A FAMILY is travelling over 11,000 miles from Putaruru, North Island, New Zealand, to present medals from the Charge of the Light Brigade to the Regimental Museum, of the 13^th/18^th Royal Hussars and the Light Dragoons, based at Cannon Hall Museum near Barnsley.

Mr John Lamb, three members of his immediate family and four family members from the UK are donating the 154 year old medals. The medals are the Crimean Medal with four clasps - Inkermann, Sebastopol, Balaklava and Alma - the Turkish Crimean Medal and the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.

The medals were awarded to his great grandfather Private James Lamb, who rode with the 13^th at the Charge on 25 October, 1854.

The donation is an extremely generous gesture as the medals are of very high value. They will be handed over at a special presentation ceremony  at Cannon Hall Museum on Wednesday, 14 May at 2pm. Mr Lamb has arranged the visit to the museum as part of a trip to the UK to visit family and friends.

Attending the ceremony will be Captain Gary Locker, Regimental Secretary of the Light Dragoons and keeper of the military collection at Cannon Hall, regimental trustees and friends of the regiment.

The Charge of the Light Brigade is the most famous of cavalry charges in so much that poorly relayed battle orders led the Brigade charging the “wrong target” and find themselves charging directly onto Russian artillery with “cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them”.

The event happened at the Battle of Balaclava, in what is now the Ukraine during the Crimean War, 1854 to 1856,

ENDS

Issued by press office, 01226 773375, email: pressoffice@barnsley.gov.uk