[CRIMEAN WAR] Free frank front signed by Lord FitzRoy Somerset, later Field Marshal and 1st Baron Raglan, one of the main protagonists in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854.

Free frank front, 85 x 125 mm, dated at London, 8 December 1828, addressed to ‘Mrs. Cuffe, St. Wolston’s, Celbridge, Ireland’, and signed lower left ‘FitzRoy Somerset’; laid down on a section cut from a leaf removed from a nineteenth-century autograph album (see note on provenance below), with an annotation by the album’s compiler identifying the famous signature; well preserved.

Field Marshal FitzRoy James Henry Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788-1855), known before 1852 as Lord FitzRoy Somerset, became commander of the British troops sent to the Crimea in 1854. It was his failure to deliver orders with sufficient clarity that caused the fateful Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava.

Provenance: Autograph album compiled by Jane Emma Murphy (Balcombe) (1854-1924), of “The Briars”, Mornington, Victoria, Australia; thence by descent through the à Beckett family, Melbourne.