2nd class cross.
Gold, silver, diamonds, strass stones, enamel.
Size 37.1 mm.
Weight 19.50 g.
Ring marked with import gold hallmark "75". Ribbon loop engraved with number "271". Looks like original back pin was cut off and replaced with a safety pin.
This cross was awarded to the captain, later rear admiral, Thomas Fellows for exceptional courage shown in the battle of Navarino in 1827.
Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Fellowes (7 January 1778 – 12 April 1853) was the youngest of the five sons of William Fellowes, physician-extraordinary to the Prince Regent – one of Thomas's brothers was the physician Sir James Fellowes and James's son was the later Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Hounsom Butler Fellowes. Serving for a while on ships of the East India Company, Thomas moved to the Royal Navy in 1797 as the master's mate on HMS Royal George. He then moved to HMS Diana and then to other ships before the Peace of Amiens in 1802. When the war broke out again he was deployed to the East Indies under Sir Edward Pellew, rising to lieutenant in 1807 and spending time in the West Indies in HMS Northumberland, Sir Alexander Cochrane's flagship. His first command was the brig HMS Swinger in 1808 as lieutenant-commander, with which he fought at the capture of the island of Deseada. This was followed on 13 November 1808 by command of the brig Unique, from which (on 21 May 1809) he made a landing at Basseterre on Guadeloupe, spiking an enemy battery's guns despite being opposed by a large French regular force – he was the only unwounded man to return from the raid.
After Unique was used as a fireship, Fellowes was promoted to commander on 16 September 1809 and put in charge of the gunboats at Cadiz from August 1810 to June 1811, during which time he was promoted to post rank in March 1811. His next command came on 11 February 1812, with the 20-gun HMS Fawn in the West Indies, with which he fought against privateers until November 1814 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. He was made a Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1815 and a knight of the Spanish Order of Charles III on 22 February 1822, the latter for his command at Cadiz. His next command, however, only came fifteen years after the peace, with the 42 gun HMS Dartmouth, which he commanded from 21 February 1827 to 16 March 1830 in the Mediterranean – there his attempt to remove a Turkish fireship caused the battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827. His actions in that command gained him the cross of the Légion d'honneur, the Order of St Anne 2nd class with diamonds, the cross of the Order of the Redeemer, a British knighthood, a presentation sword from William, Duke of Clarence, Lord High Admiral, and a DCL from the University of Oxford. /The naval battle of Navarino took place on October 8, 1827 in the Navarino Bay of the Ionian Sea on the southwestern coast of the Peloponnese Peninsula. The participants in the battle were the united squadrons of Russia, England and France, on the one hand, and the Turkish-Egyptian fleet, on the other. The battle should be considered as one of the episodes of the Greek national liberation revolution of 1821-1829. In 1827, the London Convention was signed between England, France and Russia, according to which Greece was granted full autonomy. The Ottoman Empire refused to recognize the convention. In the same year, a combined squadron of Russia, Great Britain and France (a total of 1,276 guns) under the command of the senior English Vice Admiral Edward Codrington approached the Bay of Navarino, where the Turkish-Egyptian fleet (a total of up to 2,200 guns) under the command of Muharrem Bey was located. The battle began after the Turks killed the second envoy sent to the flagship. The defeat of the Turkish fleet in the Battle of Navarino significantly weakened the naval forces of Turkey, which served as a significant contribution to the victory of Russia in the subsequent Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829. The Battle of Navarino provided support for the Greek national liberation movement, which resulted in Greek autonomy under the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829/.
His final seaborne commands were HMS Pembroke on the Lisbon station (1836–1837) and HMS Vanguard in the Mediterranean (1837–1840). He then returned to the United Kingdom to superintend Plymouth's victualling yard and hospital (1843–1846). He was promoted to rear admiral on 26 July 1847 and died in 1853.
