The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals

The Second Afghan War medal to Gunner F. J. Naylor, “E” Battery “B” Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery, wounded at Maiwand and with Sergeant Mullane when he won the V.C. for rescuing a wounded Driver

Afghanistan 1878-80, 1 clasp, Kandahar (3493 Gunr. F. J. Naylor, E. Batt. B. Bde. R.H.A.) suspension slack and polished overall, otherwise about nearly very fine
£1500-2000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals.

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Gunner Francis J. Naylor was one of the last surviving veterans of ‘E’ Battery, ‘B’ Brigade, R.H.A., at Maiwand, where he was wounded. He was the Limber Gunner of No. 2 gun in the battery’s left division commanded by Lieutenant Hector Maclaine (qv). In the attempt to save Maclaine’s gun teams, the guns themselves having been irrevocably lost after a desperate hand to hand encounter on the gun position, the Drivers of the No. 1 gun were dragged from the lead horses and slaughtered on the ground, and the team galloped riderless to the rear. The lead horses of Naylor’s No. 2 gun fared no better and were shot down, whereupon Sergeant P. Mullane, the gun’s Number One, ‘charged back in rage among the ghazis, who recoiled before his fury’. He managed to grab a wounded Driver, by the name of Pickwell Istead, from under the very knives of the Afghans and to carry him back and put him on Naylor’s limber. They then ‘galloped away to rejoin the battery, ‘leaving the ghazis and Kabuli infantry standing proudly around two 9-pounder guns of the Royal Horse Artillery’. Mullane rwas duly awarded the Victoria Cross.

Refs: London Gazette 31 December 1880; WO 100/54; E/B R.H.A. at Maiwand, R.A. Journal, Vol LV, No. 3 (Latham); My God Maiwand, Operations of the South Afghanistan Field Force 1878-80 (Maxwell).