The Most Honourable Order of Knight Commander of The Bath Chapel Stall Plate
The Most Honourable Order of Knight Commander of The Bath Chapel Stall Plate, ‘SIR JAMES LUCAS YEO., Post Captain in the Royal Navy, also a Knight Commander of the Royal Portugese Military Order of St. Bento d'Avis, nominated a Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath 2nd Jany. 1815, 185 x 225mm., gilt on copper, hand oil-painted, very fine.
The following information obtained from Wilkipedia:
Sir James Lucas Yeo was a British Naval commander who served in the War of 1812. James Yeo joined the Royal Navy in 1782 at the age of ten. Yeo was born in Southampton October 7, 1782 . Promoted to lieutenant in 1797, he soon acquired a swashbuckling reputation by leading daring expeditions against Cesanatico Harbour in 1800 and Muros Harbour in 1805. At Muros Harbour, he stormed a fort with 50 men and captured the French privateer, the Confiance. He was then promoted commander of the Confiance and became captain in 1807.
He first saw action as a lieutenant aboard a brig in the Adriatic Sea, and distinguished himself during the siege of Cesenatico in 1800. He participated in several sea battles during the Napoleonic Wars so successfully that he was made a post captain at the age of 25. In 1810, he was knighted for his services. In 1812, he commanded the frigate HMS Southampton, then stationed in the Bahamas. He captured the American brig USS Vixen, but shortly afterwards, Southampton and her prize were wrecked in the Crooked Island passage, although no lives were lost. As was customary in the case of the loss of a ship from any cause, Yeo was court martialled, but the court accepted that the reef on which he was wrecked was not charted, nor were the local currents documented, and Yeo was exonerated. He was sent to Canada to command the British naval forces in the Great Lakes during the War of 1812.
Sir James's use of his small navy was always determined and skillful, but he was hampered by a lack of cooperation from the British army. The commander of these forces, Sir George Prevost, failed to follow up key advances made by Sir James at Sackett's Harbour and elsewhere that might have resulted in major British victories. On the whole, historians regard the war on Lake Ontario as having been a draw. During the final months of the war, Yeo ensured British control of the lake by the 1814 launch of the HMS St. Lawrence, a 112 gun first rate ship of the line built in Kingston specifically for use on the lake.
After the British-American War, Yeo held important commands on the West African and Caribbean stations, but saw no further action. He died in 1818 at the age of 35, while returning from Jamaica to England.
Yeo conquered the French stronghold of Guiana for the prince regent of Portugal in 1809, when he lead a combined British-Portuguese force of 400 against a fort garrisoned with 1200 men and 200 cannon. This action earned him a Portuguese knighthood.
In March of 1813, Yeo became commodore and commander-in-chief of the British naval forces on the Canadian lakes. In late May of 1813, Yeo’s squadron supported Sir George Prevost’s attack on Sacket’s Harbour, New York, but failed to destroy the American ship, General Pike. In June, Yeo collaborated with General John Vincent in the action at Stoney Creek that threw back a U.S. invasion.
Yeo’s fleet, now consisting of six brigs, several schooners, and two new ships, Wolfe and Royal George, engaged the American fleet under Isaac Chauncey in several running actions in August and September. None of these engagements were conclusive, but this type of hit and run battle fit in well with Yeo’s strategy of preserving his squadron for the defense of Upper Canada, rather than seeking to engage his enemy in all-out battles.
An ambitious shipbuilding program was initiated by Yeo in the winter of 1813. The Americans under Isaac Chauncey, were frantically building new ships, and Yeo wanted to stop them from taking control of Lake Ontario. This shipbuilding race would continue until the end of the war.
Yeo’s ever increasing demand for men and supplies on Lake Ontario denied Robert Heriot Barclay on Lake Erie, and George Downie on Lake Champlain, sufficient seamen and military equipment to maintain British naval control of those lakes.
Other initiatives by Yeo helped frustrate U.S. invasions, one along the St. Lawrence River in 1813, and another through the Niagara Peninsula in 1814. Late in 1814, Yeo was recalled to England to prefer court martial charges against various officers, including Sir George Prevost for the loss of the British Lake Champlain squadron.
Yeo was knighted at the end of the war and appointed to command the naval base at Portsmouth and then the African fleet. He died of fever while en route from Jamaica to England on August 21, 1818.
The Chapel of the Order is in Westminster Abbey. Every four years, an installation ceremony, presided over by the Great Master, and a religious service are held in the Chapel; the Sovereign attends every alternate ceremony. The Sovereign and each knight who has been installed is allotted a stall in the choir of the chapel. Since there are a limited number of stalls in the Chapel, only the most senior Knights and Dames Grand Cross are installed. A stall made vacant by the death of a military Knight Grand Cross is offered to the next most senior uninstalled military GCB, and similarly for vacancies among civil GCBs. Above each stall, the occupant's heraldic devices are displayed. Perched on the pinnacle of a knight's stall is his helm, decorated with a mantling and topped by his crest. Above the crest or coronet, the knight's or dame's heraldic banner is hung, emblazoned with his or her coat of arms. At a considerably smaller scale, to the back of the stall is affixed a piece of brass (a "stall plate") displaying its occupant's name, arms and date of admission into the Order. Upon the death of a Knight, the banner, helm, mantling and crest (or coronet or crown) are taken down. The stall plates, however, are not removed; rather, they remain permanently affixed somewhere about the stall, so that the stalls of the chapel are festooned with a colourful record of the Order's Knights (and now Dames) throughout history.
Price: $12,500.00 Canadian
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