Orders, Decorations and Medals

India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Perak (Lieut. E. P. Ventries, 1/3rd Foot) extremely fine £150-200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Brett Collection of Medals to The Buffs.

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Edward Peyton Ventris (ies) was born at Colchester on 28 July 1856, son of the Rev. Edward Ventris, Rector of Church Aston, Shropshire. He was educated at Newport Salop Grammar School, and subsequently at Spring Grove. He obtained a commission in the Buffs and was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in February 1874. Leaving England for India in the following September, Ventris joined his regiment at Calcutta. Here he remained till the 27th September 1875, when he went to Lucknow for garrison instruction. Before he had completed his course, however, an order came for all officers to rejoin Head-quarters, in view of the departure of the Buffs in the then impending expedition to Perak. Embarking with the regiment in November 1875, he served with it in the Malay Peninsula throughout the operations of the force. The expedition terminating in the middle of March the following year, he landed at Calcutta on the 27th of that month, and at once proceeded with his regiment to Cawnpore. Having contracted a slight fever after his return to India, he was compelled to a period of several months recovery in the hills, after which he returned to Lucknow to complete his garrison course.

On the outbreak of hostilities with Afghanistan, Lieutenant Ventris, eager to make his way to the theatre of war, volunteered for active service “in any capacity,” and being a very good and promising officer, was appointed to the Transport Service in the South Afghanistan Field Force. Proceeding on the 1st February 1879, to Lahore, he received orders to go on to Sukkur, and became finally located at Haji-ka-Shehar, where he became the assistant of Lieutenant-Colonel Cherry in the Transport Train. Here his arduous duties, carried out in a trying climate, and with only bad water to be had, brought on an illness from which he died on the 14th April 1879, at Bagh, Baluchistan.