Auction Catalogue

14 December 2006

Starting at 12:00 PM

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Arms, Armour and Militaria

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

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Lot

№ 76

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14 December 2006

Hammer Price:
£1,700

Royal Engineer officer’s sword, owned by Major-General R. C. Hart, V.C., K.C.B., who won the Victoria Cross at Dakkah in Afghanistan in 1879

An 1857 pattern, the 83cm blade by Henry Wilkinson, Pall Mall, London, No 15870 for 1868 etched with crowned VR cypher, foliate scrolls, winged lightning device and ‘Royal Engineers’ POW feathers and ‘by appointment’ and within a cartouche the owners crest motto and initials ‘RCH’ regulation brass scroll guard chequered pommel and backstrap, fish-skin covered grip bound with copper wire, complete with its brass scabbard, some service wear, hilt and scabbard polished £1200-1500

Major-General Reginald Clare Hart KCB, was born at Scariff, Co Clare on 11th June 1848 son of Lieut.-General HG Hart educated at Marlborough and at Cheltenham, he entered the RMA in June 1866 and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1869. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for an act of gallantry at Dakkah on 31st January 1879 during the Afghan War, the citation reads as follows; ‘For his gallant conduct in risking his own life in endeavouring to save the life of a private soldier. The Divisional General Commanding the 2nd Division Peshawar Field Force reports that when on convoy duty with that force on the 31st January 1879, Lieutenant Hart of the Royal Engineers , took the initiative in running across some 1,000 yards to the rescue of a wounded sowar of the 13th Bengal Lancers in a river bed exposed to the fire of the enemy, of unknown strength, from both flanks and also from a party in the river bed. Lieutenant Hart reached the wounded sowar, drove off the enemy and brought him under cover with the aid of some soldiers who accompanied him on the way’.
He later served during the Egyptian Campaign 1882 in Tirah 1897-8 and was also present during the Siege of Paris in 1871.
Promoted to Major-General in 1902, he died at Bournemouth on 19th October 1931.

The Wilkinson proof books record sword No 15870 as ‘Royal Engineers’ was sold to ‘RC Hart’ 18th September 1868.

Sold with further research and copy photographic portrait.