Orders, Decorations and Medals

Pair: Major E. M. Poynton, 13th Foot

South Africa 1877-79, 1 clasp, 1878-9 (Lieut., 1/13 Foot); India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Burma 1885-7 (Captain, 2nd Bn. Som. L.I.), light contact marks and edge bruising, and the second with slack suspension claw, otherwise generally very fine (2) £1200-1500

Edward Morris Poynton, who was born at Burrington, Warwickshire in June 1855, was commissioned into the 13th Foot direct from the R.M.C. Sandhurst in November 1873.

He subsequently served in South Africa from February 1878 to September 1879, in which period he was initially employed against the Sekukini on the Transvaal border, but subsequently the Zulus, being present in the actions at Zunguin Nek, Kambula and Ulundi. His regiment particularly distinguished itself at Kambula on 29 March 1879, when it checked the enemy in the right rear of the British laager - two of its officers were severely wounded, six other ranks killed and another 19 ‘more or less severely wounded’. Further regimental casualties were sustained at Ulundi, when the 13th occupied the right of the British square.

Advanced to Captain in May 1883, Poynton was embarked for the East Indies in the same year, where he was subsequently employed in the Burma operations of 1885-87. Returning home again in January of the latter year, he was advanced to Major in December 1891 and was placed on the Retired List in July 1899, having then served as Adjutant of the 3rd (Volunteer) Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry, for several years; sold with a copy of The South African Campaign of 1879, by Mackinnon & Shadbolt (J. B. Hayward & Son reprint).