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

The Second Afghan War medal to Captain E. S. Garrett, 66th Foot, killed in action at Maiwand

Afghanistan 1878-80, no clasp (Capt. E. S. Garratt, 66th Foot) toned, good very fine £6000-7000

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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Ernest Stephen Garratt, the eldest son of the Rev Samuel Garratt, Honorary Canon of Norwich, and Loetitia, daughter of the Rev Bowater Vernon, who was Senior Chaplain to the Forces on St Helena at the time of Napoleon’s death, when the 66th Regiment happened to form part of the garrison, was born on 28 September 1845. He was educated at Marlborough, and at Geneva and elsewhere under private tutors. He received a direct commission to the 66th as Ensign when nineteen years of age in 1865. Promoted Lieutenant in July 1867, and served at Aldershot, the Channel Islands, Plymouth and the Curragh, before embarking with his regiment for India in 1870, when he obtained his company during the voyage out. Lieutenant-Colonel Barclay of the 66th formed the following opinion of him. ‘I first made his acquaintance at Belgaum in 1875; he was then in command of a detachment at the fort, and I was much struck, on inspecting his company, with the thoughtful manner in which all arrangements for the comfort of his men were carried out. No care or even expense was spared. His company, from his Colour-Sergeant to the youngest soldier, would have done anything for him.’

At this period Garratt went to great pains to nurse back to health a brother officer, Captain W. H. McMath, who was at death’s door after an unfortunate tangle with a wounded panther. McMath afterwards said that Garratt had saved his life. Later McMath would bring up from India the battery of smooth-bore guns presented to the Wali of Kandahar, which afterwards played a key part in the battle of Maiwand. After several years serving at various stations in Bombay, Garratt returned to England on leave and married. He rejoined the 66th at Ahmednuggur but soon returned home to take up an appoinment at the Depot at Reading, which he held for eighteen months before being ordered once more to India in the autumn of 1879, when he rejoined the 66th three months before their departure from Karachi to Kandahar.

At Kandahar his scientific bent was given free rein and he set up a telephone system in General Primrose’s quarters. Primrose expressed his admiration for Garratt’s skill in the ‘practice of telegraphy and the telephone’. Primrose’s A.D.C. cooed, ‘He was a first-rate electrician’.

Garratt marched with General Burrows’s force to the Helmand on 4 July 1880, in support of the Wali of Kandahar’s demonstration against the spirit of rebellion stirred up among the Zamindawar clans by the approach of Ayub Khan from Herat. At the mutiny of the Wali’s troops on the Helmand on 14 July, Garratt, the senior Captain on active service, did Field Officer’s duty. ‘We are all like brothers’, Garratt told his wife in his good natured way in a letter written shortly after the action in which the smooth-bores were captured. Having described the pursuit and the capture of the guns, he went on, ‘Then, as the enemy still held the valley to which they had retreated, we were ordered to clear it; and in this three of our men were badly wounded. One or two shots came so close to me that my horse shied and nearly threw me, as I was acting galloper between the General and the Regiment.’

A fortnight later Garratt met his death on the plain at Maiwand. After four hours of fighting the Native Infantry broke, and the 66th found themselves surrounded. Garratt, according to a brother officer, ‘turned the rear-rank of his company about to fire to the rear as well as to the front’. The fighting withdrawal to Khig ensued.



On 1 October General Primrose wrote an account for the Adjutant-General in India, describing the manner of the 66th’s retirement (London Gazette 31 December 1880): ‘Lieutenant-Colonel James Galbraith was last seen on the nullah [Mundabad Ravine] bank, kneeling on one knee, with a Colour in his hand, officers and men rallying around him; and on this spot his body was found. Here, too, fell Captain William Hamilton McMath, gallant soldier, and one who would, had his life been spared, have risen to distinction in Her Majesty’s service. Close by, 2nd Lieutenant Harry James Outram Barr was shot dead over one of the Colours. Captains Ernest Stephen Garratt and Francis James Cullen were both killed on the field in front of the nullah, up to the last moment commanding their companies and giving orders with as much coolness as if on ordinary regimental parade.

Captain Walter Roberts was mortally wounded in the garden, where the last stand was made; and here, also, fell Lieutenant Maurice Edward Rayner, Lieutenant Richard Trevor Chute (Ritchie 2-100), 2nd Lieutenant Walter Rice Olivey, and 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Honywood. The two latter officers were seen holding up the Colours, the pole of one of which was shattered to pieces, as rallying points; and Lieutenant Honywood was shot down while holding a Colour high above his head, shouting, “Men, what shall we do to save this?” Sergeant Alexander Cuppage was shot dead outside the garden while carrying a Colour; and many other non-commissioned officers and men laid down their lives in the attempt to save the Colours of their regiment on that day. With that gallant band who made this last grand effort fought and died Major George Frederick Blackwood (Ritchie 1-120), Royal Horse Artillery; Lieutenant Thomas Rice Henn, Royal Engineers; and Lieutenant Charles William Hinde, 1st Bombay Grenadiers, with some of his men. The men of the 66th on baggage guard, under the command of Captain J. Quarry, did excellent service during the retreat. The party told off to man the smooth-bore battery under Lieutenant D. De la M. Faunce worked their guns steadily and well during the fight.’

A man of Garratt’s company stated: ‘I saw Captain Garratt fall. I stopped to see if I could render him any assistance. I then noticed that he had a bullet wound between the temple and the jaw bone, and that his eyes were closed. I raised his arm and found that he was dead.’ The cost of ‘imperishable renown’ was high, the 66th losing ten officers killed out of fifteen present in the fighting line.

Refs: My God Maiwand, Operations of the South Afghanistan Field Force 1878-80 (Maxwell); The Afghan Campaign of 1878-1880 (Shadbolt).