A Waterloo Medal awarded to a Calne soldier sold for £1,200 at an auction in London on Thursday.

The medal was awarded to Bremhill-born Private John Smith, who served with the 2nd Battalion 73rd Regiment Foot at the Battle of Quatre Bras on June 16, 1815, and then at the Battle of Waterloo two days later.

The silver Waterloo Medal with distinctive crimson and blue edged ribbon was expected to fetch between £800 and £1,200 at the auction at Spink in Bloomsbury, London and had Mr Smith been an officer, or wounded at the Battle of Waterloo, it is thought the medal would have been worth even more.

Nearly 9,000 men were killed or wounded in a single day at Quatre Bras, while more than 44,000 men were killed in a one day at the Battle of Waterloo.

Private Smith was born at Bremhill in May 1793 and was 18 when he enlisted in the 73rd Foot in May 1811.

He was eventually discharged from the army, after 24 years, in August 1835, at the age of 42.

Upon his retirement he returned to his beloved Wiltshire and, according to the 1851 census, he and his Calne-born wife, Ann, and their daughter, Mary Ann, lived at Sickhill Road, Calne.

John Smith died in Calne in November 1878 with his obituary in the Swindon Advertiser stating that “his Waterloo Medal was regarded as the dearest object in his possession.”