A Collection of Medals to The Royal Engineers

Pair: Colonel Sir Robert Dalrymple, Bt., Indian Army, onetime attached Madras Sappers and Miners, late 19th Hussars, who was mentioned in despatches for his deeds with the ladder storming party at Magdala in the Abyssinia War of 1867-68, on which occasion he sustained a contusion

Abyssinia 1867 (Cornet, Madras Saprs. & Minrs.); Empress of India 1877, unnamed as issued the first with neatly refixed suspension, minor edge bruising and contact wear, generally good very fine (2) £600-800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to The Royal Engineers.

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Robert Graeme Elphinstone Dalrymple, who was born in Madras in January 1844, was appointed an Ensign in the Madras Army in December 1860 but joined the 19th Hussars as a Cornet in April 1863, that regiment being permanently employed in India (until 1870).

On the advent of the Abyssinia operations in 1867, Dalrymple was attached to ‘H’ Company of the Madras Sappers and Miners, with whom he was present in the ladder storming party at Magdala, the engineers coming under fire in the gateway to the capital from enemy loopholes. Becoming one of several to suffer contusions on that day, he had the unlucky distinction of becoming one of a handful of men to sustain wounds of any kind in the entire campaign. He was, however, mentioned in despatches for his troubles by Major-General Sir C. Stavely in April 1868.

Dalrymple became a Lieutenant in the Madras Staff Corps in October 1869 and an A.D.C. to His Excellency the Governor in the same year. Over the next two decades he served variously as a Political Agent and Cantonment Magistrate, gaining steady advancement to full Colonel in December 1890. A year or two later he returned to the U.K. and was placed on the Unemployed Supernumary List in early 1901. Sir Robert, who had succeeded his cousin as the 5th Baronet in the previous year, died in April 1908.