Orders, Decorations and Medals

India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Umbeyla (Revd. H. Drennan, H.M. 93rd Highrs.) good very fine and rare £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Massie Collection of Medals to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

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Hugh Drennan was born at Tarbolton, and educated at Linlithgow Burgh School and the University of St Andrews; licenced by Presb. of Linlithgow and became Assistant at South Leith. He was ordained Chaplain to the Forces in the Crimea, and on 18th October 1854 sailed for the East, where he served in the hospitals at Scutari until August 1855, and, for the remainder of the war, with the Highland Division.

Drennan returned to England in July 1856, where he was appointed Chaplain to the troops in India on 20 September 1857. He returned to India and served throughout the Mutiny and in the Eusufyze Campaign of 1863. He remained in India until 1871, and in 1876 was appointed Chaplain at Shoeburyness. He retired in 1897 and though he had over thirty-five years of active army service he received no pension, notwithstanding numerous representations to the War Office.

Sold with copies of a lengthy obituary published in The Border Magazine in April 1907, shortly after his death. The article shows a photograph of Drennan wearing his four medals and also an engraving of the presentation of colours to the 93rd in August 1871, in which he also features.