Coin from the Battle of Wandiwash

Transcript

Voiceover:

Now, in "A small piece of history", Michael Ball of the National Army Museum presents a favourite object from the Collection.

Michael Ball:

This is a paperweight or desk ornament of some kind. It's mounted in silver. We know it was made in India some time round about 1790.

The two items on either side are a pistol ball and a musket ball recovered from a battlefield in 1780. But what is really interesting about this is this rather strange object in the middle here.

This is a coin recovered from the battlefield of a battle called the Wandiwash fought in south-east India in 1760. Nothing particularly special perhaps in recovering a coin from a battlefield, except this coin was minted in Ireland in 1689. So this thing has taken 70 years and gone halfway round the world to end up on an Indian battlefield.

The coin was minted in the reign of James II to pay his troops during the war in Ireland against William III. So this could well have been carried by somebody fighting at the Battle of the Boyne (1690).

Now, we know that at the end of that war many Irish troops, at least 15,000 of them, took service with the French armies, they left Ireland. These became the regiments famously known as the Wild Geese.

The French continued to maintain Irish regiments in their service and we know that there was an Irish regiment at the Battle of Wandiwash in 1760. (This was a battle fought as part of the French and British struggle to extend their spheres of domination in India.) Most of that regiment we know were killed or wounded at the battle.

I would like to think that the chap who was carrying this, perhaps as a lucky charm or a souvenir, survived to fight again. But I'm afraid that's one thing we'll never know.