Beschreibung:

The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals The Third Mahratta War medal to Lieutenant-Colonel Sir William Lloyd, Commanding the Resident’s Escort at Seetabuldee, when he was wounded four times, twice severely, during the epic eighteen-hour action (a) Army of India 1799-1826, 1 clasp, Seetabuldee & Nagpore (Captn. Wm. Lloyd, Residents Escort) short hyphen reverse, officially impressed naming (b) Independent Order of Oddfellows (Manchester Union), Gold Jewel, the obverse central medallion engraved with the arms of the Order, glazed and set within a wreath of laurel with pendant crook and mace, the medallion loose in its setting, the reverse inscribed ‘Presented by the Members of the Widows and Orphans Fund of the IOFMU to Major Sir Wm. Lloyd Kt. as a token of esteem. Wrexham District 1850’, some minor knocks and marks, toned, generally good very fine £9000-12000 Footnote Only 19 Seetabuldee & Nagpore clasps to European recipients. William Lloyd, the eldest son of Richard Middleton Lloyd of Plas Madoc and Brynestyn, and his wife Mary, the daughter and co-heir of William Bowey of Chester, was born at Wrexham Regis on 29 December 1782. He was nominated a Cadet of Infantry on the Bengal Establishment in 1799 and arrived in India as an Ensign in 1800. Posted to the 2/5th Bengal N.I. at Barrackpore, he volunteered for foreign service in August 1803 and took the native volunteers of his battalion to Calcutta where they were attached to the 2nd Battalion, Bengal Volunteers. But owing to a ‘severe indisposition’ Lloyd was prevented from going overseas with the battalion to Ceylon, and had to wait until March 1804 until another opportunity offered. He then volunteered to command the Marines in the Company’s frigate Bombay (Commodore John Hayes father of Captain Fletcher Hayes (Ritchie 1-79)) on an expedition against the seaport town of Mucktee on the western coast of Sumatra, in consequence of the local populace’s ‘barbarous’ treatment of the crew of an English ship, the Crescent. On 26 July, the Bombay, the Phoenix and the Lord Castlereagh anchored off Mucktee and a ‘seid’, representing the local chiefs, was received on board Hayes’ vessel. After many ‘evasive projects’ had been proposed by the envoy, Commodore Hayes returned the ‘treacherous priest’ and at 9:00 a.m. next morning ‘made the signal for the divisions to embark in boats for the storming of the place’. ‘They had scarcely formed near the off side of the frigate’ Hayes continues, ‘when the faithless barbarians opened their fire upon her from three batteries abreast and within half a mile of us. I immediately caused a heavy cannonade to commence from the frigate...’ The landing party gained the shore ‘without accident of any kind, a rare instance of good fortune altogether unexpected, considering the ferocious banditti we had to contend with, and dislodge from very strong positions. After gaining the enemy’s works, I secured them by posting the Bengal Volunteers, under Lieut. Nott, on the right in the battery containing the heavy guns and most exposed; the Bombay Marines, under Lieut. Lloyd in the centre; and the Malbro’ Volunteers on the left...’ On the morning of the 28th, Hayes and Lloyd advanced with the Marines into the interior and destroyed the enemy’s works and captured ‘20 pieces of small cannon’. On the 29th, Hayes concludes ‘...we shipped off the ordnance &c. and in the evening embarked the troops, leaving the enemy’s works, &c. at Mucktee, under total conflagration and destruction’. In November 1805, Lloyd was appointed to the command of the Resident’s Escort at the Mahratta capital of Nagpore, lying some 600 miles from the frontier of Bengal in the heart of the unfrequented and unmapped Deccan. Over the course of the next few years Lloyd carried out a survey of the country, producing maps which later proved crucial in hunting down the Pindarries. On 15 December 1810, Lloyd, commanding a small detail of cavalry, attacked and defeated a body of