Orders, Decorations and Medals Including five Special Collections

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Defence of Lucknow (Lieut. R. G. Birch, Barrow’s Voltr. Cavy.) minor edge bruise, otherwise good very fine £800-1000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Gordon Everson.

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Richard Graham Birch was born at Calcutta on 8 March 1840, son of Lieutenant-General Sir R. J. H. Birch, K.C.B., Bengal Army, a member of a well-known Anglo-Indian family whose history goes back to the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta. He was educated at Harrow and entered the Honourable East India Company’s Military Service in 1856, aged 16 years, and was posted to the 1st Bengal Light Cavalry the following year with the rank of Lieutenant. When his regiment mutinied in June and July 1857, Birch made his way to Cawnpore where he joined Barrow’s small volunteer cavalry unit on, or just after, 17 July. He served under both Havelock and Outram, and was present at the engagements at Futteypore and Cawnpore, the forced entry to, and relief of Lucknow, and subsequent defence of the garrison.

He was severely wounded during the fighting to gain entry into the garrison at Lucknow on 25 September 1857. In his personal narrative of the Siege of Lucknow, L. E. R. Rees recorded: ‘Of the Volunteer Cavalry, who had covered themselves in glory, not only at Lucknow, but also wherever they had met the enemy, Lieutenant Lynch, Her Majesty’s 70th, was wounded in the arm; Lieutenant Palliser, 63rd Bengal Native Infantry, in the head slightly; Lieutenant Birch, 1st Bengal Light Cavalry, severely; and Lieutenant Swanston, 7th Madras Native Infantry, the quarter-master, slightly. Of the gentlemen serving in the ranks four were also wounded; Mr Erskine, dangerously, Mr R. Goldsworthy, slightly in the hand, and Mr Green, their corporal, severely in the head. Captain Burrows (sic) himself, their commander, had had two horses shot under him, but escaped untouched.’

Birch received a life pension in respect of his wounds and a year’s additional service for pension on retirement. He subsequently held appointments on Brigade and General Staff in India, becoming Captain in April 1865, and Major in March 1876. He retired as a Colonel in 1883, and became a Government Inspector, Department of Art and Science, from 1885 to 1895. He was Hon. Secretary of the Cornwall Branch of the British Red Cross Society, and died at Dilkusha, Newquay, Cornwall, on 11 September 1912, aged 72.

Another medal is known to this officer, named to the European Light Cavalry, with the single clasp Relief of Lucknow