This page makes no claim to being comprehensive, and is still very much under construction, so if you have any links to recommend, let me know. As things stand at the moment, all these links are merely personal favourites.
Below you will find links to pages on the following subjects:
Orders, Decorations and
Medals
The Flashman Books
British Mensa Ltd.
Medals For Sale
Military History
Research Societies
Researchers
Triumph Cars
Links to Orders, Decorations and Medals Pages
Phil Lascelles' MedalNet Page
The most comprehensive site I've yet found -
thousands of further links and lots of other fascinating stuff.
Highly recommended.
The Orders
and Medals Research Society
A completely new and now official homepage for the oldest, and possibly the most prestigious,
medal society in the world. The site contains full information and contact
details for the OMRS, as well as selected articles
from the society journal. Well worth a visit.
International Electronic
Phaleristic Encyclopaedia
Quite a mouthful, and quite a site. This is Ed Haynes' attempt to bring together all
possible information related to the study of Orders, Decorations and Medals. It's a pretty
damn good attempt!
Polish Orders, Medals, Badges, and Insignia
OK, so I know nothing about the medallic history of Poland, but this
is possibly the best way
to find out about it. A beautifully-crafted homepage,
with links to related pages by the same author/webmaster. Recommended
as an example of what can be done on a specialist medallic interest.
The Orders and Medals Society of America
One of the best-known medal-collecting societies; there's very little here
for collectors of British Campaign medals (like me), but I can't simply
ignore them! Useful searchable index of articles in their
Journal, 1990-date: follow the links to the Journal pages.
Links to Flashman Pages
Royal Flashman
Society of Upper Canada
The first, the biggest, and dare I say, the best of the Flashman sites?
No I daren't - Dave Tibbetts would kill me...
Flashman Society
of the United Kingdom
The best of the Flashman sites (that'll be a fiver, Dave) - after all,
it's British, dammit!
The Flashman Papers Project
Website maintained by Bret Culpepper and originally developed
by Brian Siano. Very comprehensive.
Sir Harry Flashman's Memoirs
Copiously-illustrated website designed and maintained by Bret
Culpepper.
Links to Mensa Pages
East Midlands Region of British Mensa Ltd.
The homepage of my local Region within British Mensa, a Region which is shaped like a deformed carrot and runs from Watford to Lincolnshire. Or Lincolnshire to Watford, if you prefer.
Links to Medals for Sale
I have had some dealings, either as a customer or as a researcher, with every dealer who appears in this section. Whilst nothing is guaranteed in this life, and a buyer should always beware, I believe that all the companies which appear below are entirely reputable, and I would have no worries about buying from any of them myself.
Vimy Militaria
A nicely-presented and relatively new site, with a good stock of
post-1870 medals, and a few earlier examples as well.
Gordon's Medals
Another nicely-presented site, with a good stock of
Victorian Campaign medals and groups. Particularly strong in Crimeas.
Toad Hall Medals
A relatively new page, and unfortunately one without an on-line catalogue (yet). Still,
I have bought some nice medals from them at reasonable prices.
Philip Burman Medals
A new arrival on the Internet, but a well-known and well-established dealer.
Philip is a gentleman, and his wares are always worth a browse.
Links to Military History Pages
Military Operations of the
Crimean War
A brief article written by yours truly, and
illustrated by the CWRS Staff Artist, Clive Farmer.
Crimean Texts
A superb site, still growing on an almost daily basis, including articles on
various aspects of the war, and a large data-base of
transcripts of contemporary letters and articles.
Xenophon Group International
The group was founded to promote the study of military history, particularly
between America, Russia and Ukraine. This site covers all aspects of the military history
of these countries, and is particularly good on the Crimean War.
The History Net
This site is the
on-line link to a huge number of articles published in specialist history magazines.
There are a couple of different search engines contained within the site;
you may search by keywords or by magazine.
Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry
Mike Young's excellent site dedicated to the DCLI and its predecessor regiments, the 32nd and 46th
Foot. One day I shall get around to writing him an article on the 46th in the Crimea...
Public Record Office
This is the official homepage of the premier resource for
historical records in the UK. Here you will find a great deal of
information about the PRO and what it does (so well); sadly you will not
find their entire collection of archives on-line!
LionGate
Tangible military history.
Rob Miller's LionGate is a site dedicated to historical edged weapons, particularly
British swords of the Nineteenth Century and earlier.
Rob is a collector of such items, and offers a free identification service to those
who send him decent quality photos of the weapons they wish identified. LionGate is also
a sales organisation, with swords to sell, several of which had me drooling last time
I visited the site!
COPAC
COPAC provides free access to the unified
online catalogues of some of the largest university research libraries in the UK and Ireland. Amongst
the collections available are those of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, of Trinity College, Dublin,
and a large number of provincial and redbrick universities. The total catalogue contains over 6,000,000 records.
COPAC records represent a wide range of materials. Mainly books, reports and periodicals, but others such
as videos, music, and electronic journals are included.
Royal Commission on Historic Manuscripts
The Royal Commission on Historic Manuscripts, a government body, offers access to the searchable
catalogue of the National Register of Archives. The NRA search engine offers the opportunity to
search by personal name, corporate name or by place name. One peculiarity of the personal name
search is that peers are listed under their family names, and not their titles. Once you have got the
hang of this, it takes a matter of seconds to discover that manuscript letters written by Fitzroy
Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan, appear in no less than 35 separate collections in Great Britain.
One of the great joys of this site is that clicking on the name of the archival body next to the
individual entry provides you with full contact details, including opening times, telephone
numbers and even e-mail addresses.
Base Léonore
Léonore database of recipients of the Légion d’Honneur up to 1956.
The site contains the names, dates, and places of birth of all French recipients
of the award, and similar information relating to a number of foreign nationals,
although by no means all. As far as I can tell, none of the British officers
and men who received the honour for their services during the Crimean War
are listed here, although I believe all the French are. The site is only
available in French, and, in deference to those who do not speak the language,
here is a brief crib of the most important terms that you will need to know before
conducting a search: Patronyme=surname; Prénom=Christian name; Lieu=place and Naissance=birth. One tip - "less is more" -
don't enter more than the minimum search criteria to ensure that you find the record you are searching.
The Middlesex Regiment
Another excellent regimental site is Alec Powell’s “The Middlesex Regiment."
Alec’s father served in the Middlesex Regiment earlier this century, and
these pages are, in a sense, a tribute to him. Like Mike Young’s “Light Infantry”
pages, Alec covers the entire history of every battalion that comes within his remit, and regularly updates his site.
Crimean Medical Officers
The Crimea Medical Officers pages at the GENUKI (UK and Ireland Genealogy) site.
Here is reproduced the Parliamentary return “of the Names of all Persons appointed
PHYSICIANS, SURGEONS, ASSISTANT SURGEONS, ACTING ASSISTANT SURGEONS,
DRESSERS, or other MEDICAL OFFICERS to the ARMY or NAVY, or to the HOSPITALS at
SCUTARI, SMYRA or elsewhere, for SICK or DISABLED SOLDIERS or SAILORS, from the
1st day of January 1854 to the present Time,” that is, May, 1855, “stating the nature
of the Degrees, Diplomas, or Licenses (sic) held by them as Qualifications, and the
Colleges from which they have been obtained” The return is indexed alphabetically, and is straightforward to use.
Edward St. John Daniel V.C.
This site tells of the heroic services of Midshipman Edward St. John Daniel, ADC
to Captain William Peel, RN, in the Naval Brigades in the Crimean War and in the Indian Mutiny. Daniel was
awarded the Victoria Cross for his valour at the Battle of Inkerman and at the Assault on the
Redan of 18th June 1855. He forfeited his Cross as a result of having committed an unspecified "disgraceful offence"
in 1861. The story of his life as an exile, and intriguing speculation over a possible faked death
and life under an assumed name is told in a vivid and compelling way by his distant relative, Michael Daniels.
Victoria Cross Reference
At Mike Chapman's comprehensive Victoria Cross Reference site you can find a full index
of all recipients of the Victoria Cross from its inception to the present day.
You can search by name, unit, rank, location of deed (usually a battle), campaign,
nationality of recipient, or you can even search for living recipients. Naturally
I pulled up the Crimean War list, which also contains details of the five Baltic VCs,
as well as, erroneously, the listing for one of the three Persian War VCs (Capt. John Angustus [sic] Wood).
The other two Persian War VCs are listed equally erroneously under the Indian Mutiny.
This site is a super ready reference, and states the final ranks achieved by the individual recipients,
and also at least some of
the other orders and decorations awarded to those recipients (but by no means all of them).
The British Library
From here
you can follow links to search the entire
collections of the Reference and Lending Libraries!
A fantastic resource to have at your fingertips. As one might expect,
I searched under the keywords "Crimean War" and found several hundred books listed,
many of which were, of course, old friends, but a huge number were new to me.
Crimean War Publishers
A non-profit syndicate of individuals who
have come together
to publish works of major historical significance. The first project is the
publication, on CD-ROM, of every General Order issued to the Crimean Army.
Links to Research Societies' Pages
Crimean War Research
Society
A short introduction to what the Society is and what it does, plus
some fascinating articles by Society members.
Scottish Military Historical Society
A colossal site, and getting bigger all the time. There's a lot more
than kilts and cabers here; this is a significant research resource.
Links to Researchers' Pages
Bob O'Hara Research Services
Time was that I offered a Research Service myself, but the demands of family and full-time job meant that I
simply didn't have the time to do it any more. Bob has taken over my existing customer base, and is,
I'm sure, providing a much better service than I ever did!
Links to Triumph Cars
OK, OK, so I haven't got around to putting anything in here yet, but I will. Yes, definitely, one of these days...
