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

The Scinde campaign medal for the battle of Hyderabad to Acting Gunner Richard White, E.I.C. Steamer Meteor

Hyderabad 1843 (R: White Act: Gr. E:I:C:Sr. Meteor) officially impressed naming, fitted with original German silver bar suspension, good very fine and rare £2500-3000

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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Collection

Ex Whalley 1877 and Payne 1910.

Only 50 medals with the Hyderabad reverse issued to European recipients aboard the Meteor (16), Comet (17) and Nimrod (17). However, twenty-one of these medals were not claimed by the recipients and were subsequently returned to the India Office. According to a note on the medal roll, White’s medal, together with examples for the Meteor and Nimrod, was “Given to Mr Stewart Mackenzie [a well-known collector of medals] in exchange for a new medal by permission of Lord G. Hamilton 24.4.77”. The remaining eighteen returned medals were in all probability melted down, leaving as few as 32 medals actually issued.

Richard White, a Londoner, is recorded in the List of European Seamen in the Indian Navy Establishment up to 31 December 1842 as being 34 years of age and belonging to the H.C.V. Meteor. He arrived from England in the Lady East in 1840, and received the Hon. Company’s Bounty on 18 February of that year. He signed on for five years service, but died at Sakhen on 20 September 1843.

Ref: IOL L/MAR/C/745; Medals awarded to the Indian Navy for the Sind Campaign 1843 (Bullock).