Victorian Medal Trio to Grenadier Guards, Crimean War

Interesting trio of medals awarded to 6470 Corporal Thomas Charles of the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards.
The medals are the Victorian Long Service and Good Conduct medal correctly named to Charles, the Turkish Crimea medal, this is also correctly named to Charles and the Crimean War medal, this is an original erased medal which has been added because his original medal was lost. The medals comes with a copy of his service papers which gives the details below and two copy photographs of Charles with his old comrades, these are delightful and were obtained via the Grenadier Guards Museum. Also included are two very old letters written by his family, his Daughter I believe, to his old friends after his death, it appears that he was a Chelsea pensioner in later life; and lastly the best, an old original photograph of Thomas in full dress uniform; this is quite faded but is an image of him as a young guardsman so it must have been taken around the 1860’s by a professional portrait photographer, what a very rare thing to have accompanying Victorian medals.
Thomas Charles was born 1829 in Cambridge, before joining the army he was employed as a labour, probably on local farms.
He enlisted in to the Grenadier Guards in Cambridge 1853 at the age of 24 years; he served in the Crimean war earning two clasps, Alma and Sebastopol and in North Africa. Over all he served a total of 22 years earning the Long Service and Good Conduct medal.
Both of his original medals are in good condition for their age, the Crimea medal is also in very good condition but looks erased.
It is unknown what happened to Thomas’s Crimea medal, one of the pictures featuring him clearly shows him wearing all three medals and the other picture was taken with, the then Prince of Wales, later Edward VII.
A wonderful Victorian trio to a long serving Guardsman which could be further researched if wished, if not a great group for future investment.

Code: 15930