Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Army of India 1799-1826, 1 clasp, Poona (Lieut. A. Cuppage, 65th Foot) short hyphen reverse, officially impressed naming, suspension claw re-fixed, edge bruising and contact marks, therefore nearly very fine and rare £4,000-£5,000

Dalrymple-White Collection 1946; Elson Collection 1963; Dix Noonan Webb, March 2008.

Only 75 clasps for Poona issued to European recipients, including 8 officers and 34 other ranks of the 65th Foot.

Adam Cuppage was born at Dunfin, County Antrim, on 29 February 1794. He was appointed Ensign in the 65th Foot on 11 March 1813, and promoted to Lieutenant in August 1815. He served with the 65th Foot on the borders of Scindiah’s territory in Guzerat from November 1814 to May 1815, Lieutenant-Colonel Holmes, E.C.S. in command; in Kathiawar and Kutch from June 1815 to May 1816, when present at the taking of Juria, Bunda, Anjar, Dwarka, Kuncote, and Dingee, Lieutenant-Colonel East, E.C.S. in command; in the Deccan from October 1816 till January 1819, during the whole Mahratta campaign, present at the capture of Poonah, 16 March 1817, Major-General Sir L. Smith in command; in Kutch, February and March 1819, Major-General Sir W. Keir Grant in command; in the Persian Gulf from October 1819 to April 1820, at the capture of Ras-al-Khyma and Zyah forts, Major-General Sir W. Keir Grant in command; on the coast of Arabia from January 1821 to March 1821, in the action of Ben Boo Ali, 2d March, when the tribe of Wahbee Arabs was annihilated, and on which occasion Lieutenant Cuppage was wounded.

In his Statement of Services made in 1829, Cuppage notes in respect of his wounds, ‘No Pay received & no Pension granted from delay in obtaining & forwarding the necessary certificates’. He married at Edinburgh on 26 August 1824, Mary Hughes Bulkely McDonald, and had produced by the close of 1829 three sons and a daughter, namely John McDonald, Thomas Hughes, Adam, and Margaret Hughes Cuppage. He was placed on half-pay on the unattached list on 13 November 1835.

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