British Crimean War Medal

The Crimean War was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Sardinia-Piedmont. The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts in which military forces used modern technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways and telegraphs. The war was also one of the first to be documented extensively in written reports and in photographs. The war quickly became a symbol of logistical, medical and tactical failures and of mismanagement. The reaction in Britain led to a demand for professionalisation of medicine, most famously achieved by Florence Nightingale, who gained worldwide attention for pioneering modern nursing while she treated the wounded.

From 1850 to 1868 forty three ships transporting convicts journeyed to the Swan River Colony. In addition to the convicts, there were over 1,000 men of the enrolled pensioner force to guard the convicts at sea and act as an auxiliary military unit after landfall. Many warders and gaolers and some policemen joined the convict establishment to assist in law and order in the Colony. Many of these men of the convict establishment, the convicts themselves and other military pensioners were veterans of the Crimean War. This accounts for many of the medals presented for service in the Crimean War being in the Army Museum collection.