A scarce Burmese War D.C.M. group of four awarded to Colour-Sergeant Charles Brooks, 2nd Battalion, Hampshire Regiment, for gallantry at Silay-Myo in July 1886

Distinguished Conduct Medal, V.R. (2163 Cr. Sergt. C. Brooks. 2/Hampr: R: 31st July 1886); Afghanistan 1878-80, 2 clasps, Charasia, Kabul (2163 Lce. Sgt. C. Brooks. 67th Foot); India General Service 1854-94, 1 clasp, Burma 1885-87 (2163 Cr. Sergt. C. Brooks 2d Bn. Hamps. R.); Army L.S. & G.C., V.R., small letter reverse (2373 Cr. Sergt. C. Brooks. Derby R.) contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine or better (4) £4000-5000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the Hampshire Regiment.

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D.C.M. submitted to the Queen 11 January 1887; G.O. 32 of 1887.

A total of eleven D.C.Ms. awarded for the various campaigns in Burma 1885-91, including three to the Hampshire Regiment.

The following article appeared in The Hampshire Regimental Journal for March 1913:

‘Ex-Colour Sergeant C. Brooks, whose photograph we reproduce in this number, joined the Service in 1871, being attested for the 67th at Hythe on Dec. 30th of that year. After serving for eighteen years he was transferred as a Colour-Sergeant to the P.S. of the Notts and Derby Regiment (Militia), becoming discharged to pension on April 30th, 1895, with a total service of 23 years 4 months, out of which 15 years and 1 month were spent abroad. Mr. Brooks is the proud possessor of the medal for distinguished conduct in the field, gained whilst engaged in the Burmah Campaign of 1886. It was on July 31st of that year, during the engagement at the relief of Silay-Myo, when the officer in command of the column, the late Major Atkinson, was killed, that Col.-Sergt. Brooks took charge of the mixed detachment of Europeans and native troops and carried out the engagement successfully, inflicting a severe reverse upon the enemy, and being subsequently rewarded with this decoration. As is most generally known by all interested, the D.C. medal has a pecuniary addition of 6d. per diem to the recipient’s pension, but through some mischance or other this was overlooked upon assessment of Mr. Brooks’s pension, and until 1911 was not issued to him. In that year he attended at the sergeants’ annual for the first time, when the conversation led to the subject of pensions, and he found that for a period of over 15 years he had been minus this 6d. per diem. Representations were at once made to the Army Council by the Secretary of the Military Aid Fund, with the result that the amount was at once added to his daily rate of pension. We are given to understand that influential representations are promised towards getting the sum which elapsed through this error, which we hope will be successful.’