About the product

IGS Relief of Chitral Menu Holder Leeds Engineers

India General Service Medal 1895, bar Relief of Chitral 1895, Gunner in 4th Hazara Mountain Battery, neatly converted to a menu holder gift of a Captain.

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SKU: J9199 Category:
Origin: United Kingdom
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Description

India General Service Medal 1895, bar Relief of Chitral 1895, Gunner in 4th Hazara Mountain Battery, neatly converted to a menu holder gift of a Captain.

 

Officially engraved in running script: “58 Gunner Naick Piala Pihan No 4 (Hazara) Mtn By”

 

During 1895, the Hazara Mountain Battery, part of the Punjab Frontier Force was mobilised for active service in the Relief of Chitral campaign.

 

The Wikipedia page for the Battery has a good photograph from 1895 of the Gunners manning one of their 7 Pounder Mountain Guns:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24th_Hazara_Mountain_Battery_(Frontier_Force)

 

 

The medal was back in 1902, converted to a “Menu Holder” for an Officer’s Mess.

 

The medal has been minimally effected by the work, the mechanism being soldered only to the backstrap of the clasp, the medal also still swivels.

 

The reverse of the stand has been hand engraved to read: “-> Presented By <- -> Capt J.W.H. Brown <- 24.4.02”

 

The Captain later Colonel Dr James William Henry Brown M.B., was at the time a Captain in the Leeds Engineers, the 2nd (Leeds) West Yorkshire Royal Engineer Volunteers.

According to his obituary he was: “A Leeds man, and was engaged for many years in the Holbeck district as a General Practitioner. He was gazetted in 1891 in the Old 2nd West Yorkshire Royal Engineer Volunteers, and continued to serve with them until the transfer of the unit to the Territorial Force in 1909. He remained with the unit and took command of it as the Northern Telegraph Signals in 1913.

Colonel Brown commanded the unit on mobilisation and remained in command until transferred for service in Egypt. After the war, and on retirement, Colonel Brown was appointed a full Colonel on the Territorial Army Reserve.”