A Kaisar-i-Hind group of three awarded to Lieutenant Adolphe Ernest Orr, 53rd (Santhal) Company, Indian Labour Corps

Kaisar-I-Hind, V.R., 2nd class, silver, complete with brooch bar; British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut.) good very fine (3) £500-600

Ex J. M. A. Tamplin Collection.

Kaisar-i-Hind published in the first ever list of K-i-H awards by the India Office on 23 May 1900.

The Orr family, of Scottish descent, had settled in Oudh before the annexation of that State by the Honourable East India Company. Adolphe's Grandfather, Alexander Orr, the Librarian to the Nawab of Oudh, had three sons, including Adophe's father in the service of the Nawab of Oudh prior to the Indian Mutiny - all of whom served as Officers in the Nawab of Oudh's Army. The 'Orr' family figured prominently in providing intelligence reports prior to the annexation of Oudh. During the Great Mutiny, Adolphe's father and two brothers all served with distinction in the service of the H.E.I.C.; Captain Patrick Orr was slaughtered; Captain Alexander Orr was Head of Intelligence during the siege and capture of the Alum Bagh; Captain Adolphus Orr being prominent during the siege of the British Residency at Lucknow. Such were the value of the particular services rendered by Adolphe's father, both prior to and during the Indian Mutiny, that his father was one of only six British, or Eurasian residents subsequently rewarded by the H.E.I.C. with large tracts of confiscated lands in the former state of Oudh

Adolphe Ernest Orr was born on 8 July 1861, and was educated at Brighton and in London. He then passed into the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper’s Hill in 1880, and went out to India in October 1884. He joined the Public Works Department, as an Assistant Engineer, Second Grade, in September 1883. He was then with the Railway Branch in the Punjab. Orr worked on numerous P.W.D. projects, including the survey for the Sind Sagar State Railway 1884-85, and on the Patiala Railway Survey in 1887.

Orr was awarded the Kaisar-I-Hind, 2nd Class, on 23 May 1900, at which time he held the position of Executive Engineer, Public Works Department, and Divisional Famine Officer at Hissar in the Punjab. In May 1904 he was Under-Secretary to the Government in the Buildings and Roads Branch at Lahore, and was subsequently a Superintending Engineer in February 1912. Orr retired from the Public Works Department in July 1916. During the Great War he was appointed a temporary Second Lieutenant serving with the 53rd (Santhal) Company, Indian Labour Corps. He served in France from 1 July 1917. He subsequently lived in London, and then at Oxhey Lodge Farm, Watford, where he died on 9 December 1928, aged 67 years.

Sold with a quantity of copied research.