Medals presented to a fearless north-east soldier who served with the Black Watch at the Battle of Waterloo are expected to fetch nearly £3,000 at auction.
The Waterloo Medal and the Military General Service Medal 1793-1814 were awarded to
Aberdeen-born colour sergeant William Bowman, of the 42nd Royal Highlanders.
Bowman, who was born in the Granite City in 1794 and lived at Princes Street, still a teenager when he enlisted in the Black Watch in August 1812.
He served with the first battalion of the regiment in the Peninsular War against Napoleon’s French army.
The ribbon of his Military General Service 1793-1814 medal has four clasps attached, each one representing a battle he fought in.
They are for the Battle of Nivelle in November 1813, the Battle of the Nive in December 1813, the Battle of Orthes in February 1814 and the Battle of Toulouse on April 10, 1814, where Bowman was wounded.
He was also present at the Battle of Waterloo, on June 18, 1815, when more than 44,000 men on both sides were killed or injured.
William Bowman served in the Army for more than 22 years and was eventually discharged in November 1834.
He later returned to his beloved Aberdeen and, in 1851, he and his wife Catherine and their three children John, Margaret and Thomas were living at the city’s Rubislaw Den.
After surviving the carnage of the Peninsular War, during which many of his friends and colleagues were killed, Bowman ended up at the Royal Lunatic Asylum in Aberdeen, where he died at the age of 72 on February 20, 1866.
His medals will be auctioned at Spink in London’s Bloomsbury on Thursday.
They are expected to fetch between £2,500-£3,000.