Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Naga Hills 1875 expedition Indian Order of Merit pair awarded to Jemadar Gaj Bahadur, 44th Gurkha Light Infantry

Indian Order of Merit, Military Division, 1st type, 3rd Class, Reward of Valor, silver and enamel, the reverse inscribed on three lines ‘3rd / Class / Order of Merit’, lacking ribbon buckle; India General Service 1854-95, 5 clasps, Bhootan, Naga 1879-80, Burma 1885-7, Burma 1887-89, N.E. Frontier 1891 (Sepoy Gaj Bahadur, 44th Regt. N.I.) suspension claw tightened, pitting overall, generally nearly very fine (2) £3000-3500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The collection of Medals formed by the Late Clive Nowell.

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3rd Class Order of Merit announced in G.O. 1133 of 12 November 1875: ‘The Hon’ble the President in Council is pleased to admit the under-mentioned native commissioned and non-commissioned Officers and men of the 44th (Sylhet) Regiment of Native (Light) Infantry to the 3rd Class of the Order of Merit, in consideration of their conspicuous gallantry during the operations recently carried out in the Naga Hills:-

Naick Guj Bahadoor (and two sepoys). For conspicuous gallantry in checking the advance and repelling the repeated attacks of the enemy when attached to the rear guard which covered the retreat of the survivors of the late Lieutenant Holcombe’s Naga Survey Party, on the 2nd February 1875.’

Guj/Gaj Bahadur joined the 44th (Sylhet) Regiment of Native Infantry on 26 May 1860, and first saw active service in the operations of 1862-63 in the Khasiah and Jantia Hills. He next served in the punitive expedition against the Bhootanis in 1864-66.

By February 1875 Guj Bahadoor had attained the rank of Naick and was stationed at Dibrugarin. At 9 a.m. on the morning of the 16th of that month, word reached Colonel J. M. Nuttall, commanding the 44th, of a treacherous attack on a survey party under Lieutenant Holcombe in the Naga Hills, in which eighty men had been killed and fifty wounded, ‘the bulk being defenceless coolies’. By noon Nuttall had every available man under arms and marching up to the Naga frontier. ‘On the 23rd’, records the History of the 8th Ghurka Rifles, the lineal descendant of the three old Assam regiments the 42nd, 43rd and 44th, ‘parties of the 42nd and 44th were placed under his orders. The expedition, after a most difficult progress, made worse by rivers swollen by the recent rains, was completely successful. All villages implicated in the outrage were destroyed, and nearly all arms and plunder taken from the Survey Party recovered’. Nuttall and all ranks involved subsequently received the thanks of the Government.

Guj Bahadoor saw further service in Burma 1886-89 and during the Manipur expedition in 1891, and retired as a Subadar in about 1894. There were only four awards of the Indian Order of Merit for the Naga Hills operations of 1875, none of which are recorded by Hypher.