United Kingdom, Turkey. A St. Jean D’Arc Medal to Vice-Admiral W.H. Haswell, Commander of the Investigator During the McClure Arctic (North West Passage) Expedition, 1850

Instituted 1840. In Silver, a round medal with obverse featuring the Arabic script “The Country of Syria and the Fortress of Acre, 1256”, with the tughra of Sultan Abdul-Medjid on the reverse, the rim has been engraved W.H. HASWELL. “TALBOT,” 1840., measures 29.7 mm in diameter, weighs 16.1 grams including ribbon, minor wear, extremely fine. 

Footnote: Vice-Admiral William Henry Haswell  (born in Devonport, 1818) served in the Royal Navy for more than fifty years and participated in several of the major naval and imperial campaigns of the nineteenth century. Entering the Navy in 1830, he was promoted to sub-lieutenant in 1838 and served aboard HMS Talbot during the 1840 operations against the forces of Muhammad Ali in Syria. He was present at the bombardment and capture of St. Jean d’Acre on 3 November 1840, where he was slightly wounded and received the St. Jean D’Arc medal awarded for the action. Shortly afterwards, as senior sub-lieutenant aboard HMS Dolphin off the coast of Brazil, he took part in anti-slavery patrols directed against the Atlantic slave trade. Promoted lieutenant in August 1845, he served aboard HMS Acorn in operations on the River Plate, Paraná, and Uruguay during Sir Charles Hotham’s expedition against Rosas in 1845–46.

Haswell later served as lieutenant and acting commander of HMS Penelope on the West Coast of Africa, where he again participated in anti-slavery operations and the interception of slave ships. During this service he was instrumental in the capture of thirteen slavers and the liberation of approximately 1,300 enslaved people. Promoted commander in 1850, he became commander of HMS Investigator during Captain Robert McClure’s Arctic expedition in search of Sir John Franklin and the Northwest Passage. From January 1850 until October 1854 the expedition endured nearly five years in the Arctic, including more than four years trapped in the ice after entering through the Bering Strait. Although Investigator was eventually abandoned, the expedition completed one of the earliest traverses of the Northwest Passage, for which Haswell received the Arctic Medal.

In 1857 Haswell commanded the troopship Himalaya during the China expedition, but upon learning at Angier Point of the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, he diverted the vessel on his own initiative to Calcutta, arriving in time to assist in the relief of Lucknow. For this action he received the thanks of the Governor-General in Council on two occasions, as well as recognition from the Lords of the Admiralty. He was promoted captain in 1858, retired captain in 1872, retired rear-admiral in 1879, and retired vice-admiral in 1881. In his later years he held a Greenwich Hospital flag officer’s pension, awarded in 1885. He died at his residence on Adamson Road, South Hampstead, in 1900 at the age of eighty-one.