Orders, Decorations and Medals

The MacGregor Memorial Medal awarded to Colonel G. E. Leachman, C.I.E., D.S.O., Royal Sussex Regiment, a British Explorer, Soldier and Spy employed in the Middle East, who was murdered in 1920

MacGregor Memorial Medal, obv. high relief bust, left, ‘Major General Sir Charles MacGregor, K.C.B., C.S.I., C.I.E., In Memoriam 1887’, rev. Indian troops (Awarded to Captain G. E. Leachman for exploration work 1910), large type, 70mm., silver, nearly extremely fine £2000-2500

The MacGregor Memorial Medal was founded in 1888 as a Memorial to the late Major-General Sir Charles MacGregor, as an award for outstanding military reconnaissance of exploration, in the remote areas of India or on its frontiers, which produced new information of value to the defence of India. Most journeys involved considerable risk. Hazards could include hostile tribes, armed brigands, extremes of climate, harsh terrain, or dangerous animals. It was envisaged that two awards would be made annually; a large silver medal to officers, and a small silver medal to other ranks. If there were no deserving cases in a particular year, no award would be made, and in a few years an additional award was ‘specially awarded’, as in the case of this recipient. For specially valuable work a gold medal of the smaller size could be awarded whenever the Council deemed it desirable.

The MacGregor Memorial Medal is the only exclusively military award, instituted during British rule, which continues to be granted to the Republic of India’s armed forces. The criteria of endeavour for both officers and other ranks to become eligible for the award have been rigorously upheld. In the one hundred years from its founding until 1987, only 114 awards have been made: 7 in gold, 59 large silver medals to officers, and 48 small silver medals to non-commissioned officers and other ranks.

Gerard Evelyn Leachman was born on 27 July 1880, the son of Dr. Leachman of Fairley, Petersfield. He was educated at Charterhouse, 1893-97 and in January 1900 was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment. With them he served in the Boer War, serving in operations in the Orange Free State, February-May 1900, including actions at Houtnek (Thoba Mountain), Vet River, 5/6 May 1900 and Zand River. Then operations in Transvaal, May-June 1900, including actions near Johannesburg, Pretoria and Diamond Hill, 11/12 June 1900. Then operations in Orange River Colony, May-November 1900, including the action at Wittebergen, 1-29 July 1900. Leachman was wounded at Retiefs Nek, 23 July 1900. Later in the war he served in the Transvaal, Orange River Colony and the Cape Colony, January 1901-May 1902. For his services he was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 29 July 1902) and awarded the Queen’s medal with four clasps and King’s medal with two. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1902, Captain in 1909 and Major in 1915.

In 1907 Leachman was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Ostensibly travelling in the Middle East
as a naturalist of the R.G.S., he was in fact a British political officer and agent. His first major expedition south into the Arabian Peninsula was in 1909, during which he became involved in a battle between the Anaiza and Shammar tribes near Ha’il. In his second expedition in 1912 he reached Riyadh and was the first Briton to be received by Ibn Saud. For his exploratory work he was awarded the MacGregor Medal for exploration in 1910 and the R.G.S. Gill Medal in 1911 for his travels in N.E. Arabia.

In the Great War Leachman came to fame when, in December 1915, during the Siege of Kut, he was ordered by Major-General Charles Townsend, to break out with the cavalry, thereby saving them from capture. For his wartime services he was granted the brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel, was twice mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 5 April 1916 & 19 October 1916), awarded the C.I.E. in 1916 and awarded the D.S.O. (London Gazette 2 April 1919; details 10 December 1919).

His D.S.O. citation reads, ‘Leachman, Gerard Evelyn, C.I.E., Major and Brevet Lieut.-Colonel, Royal Sussex Regt., attached Political Department (Mesopotamia). For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty at Huwaish on 28 Oct. 1918, and again at Qaiyarah on 30 Oct. 1918. He displayed marked courage in personally reconnoitering in his own unarmoured car, under heavy fire, ground over which the heavier armoured cars could not move, He then returned to guide then to the attack. The success attained by these cars during the operations was largely due to his intimate knowledge of the country and fearless leading over trackless desert’.

Leachman’s great affinity with the Bedouin and pre-war and wartime exploits in the Middle East invite comparison with those of T. E. Lawrence. The two men met only once, and from his writings, Lawrence’s opinion of Leachman was not favourable. Describing Leachman in a letter (written in 1929) as ‘a thin jumpy nervous long fellow, with a plucked face and neck. He was full of courage and hard as French nails. He had an abiding contempt for everything native .... this made him inconsiderate, harsh, overbearing towards his servants and subjects: and there was, I stake my oath, no justification for the airs he took. ... I should call him a man too little sensitive to be aware of other points of view other than his own; too little fine to see degrees of greatness, degrees of rightness in others. He was blunt and outspoken to a degree. Such is a good point in a preacher, a bad point in a diplomat. It makes a bullying judge too. I think he was first and foremost a bully: .... For his few days with us in Hejaz we were not prepared. “Leachman”, it was a great name and repute in Mesopotamia (a land of fourth-raters) and we thought to find a colleague in him. After less than a week we had to return him on board ship, not for anything he said, though he spoke sourly always, but because he used to chase his servant so unmercifully that our camp took scandal to it. ...’

After the war, he was appointed the first military governor of Kurdistan. He was murdered by the tribal leader, Sheikh Dhari, on 12 August 1920. Lawrence in his same letter records, ‘... but one day he spat in a sheikh’s face ... The chief upped and shot him in the back .... Both insult and reprisal were almost unprecedented in the history of the desert. Then Leachman was’nt quite what you call a decent fellow, and the sheikh whom I met a year later was febrile. As Leachman died tragically we must hide his fault. Don’t make him a hero .... He was too shrill, too hot tempered, too little generous’

It is clear from his writings that in Lawrence’s view, the desert was too small for the both of them. It would have been interesting reading to learn of Leachman’s opinion of Lawrence! For a more balanced opinion, see A Paladin of Arabia, the biography of Brevet Lieut-Colonel G. E. Leachman of the Royal Sussex Regiment, by Major N. N. E. Bray. Sold with some copied research.