Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Second Aghfan War medal awarded to Lieutenant Frank Whittuck, 1st Bombay Grenadiers, a survivor of the disaster at Maiwand who died shortly afterwards

Afghanistan 1878-80, no clasp (Lieut. F. Whittuck, Bo. N.I.) good very fine £1200-1500

Frank Whittuck was born on 16 July 1856, the fifth son of Captain Whittuck, late 82nd Regiment, of Ellsbridge House, Keynsham, Somersetshire. He was educated at the Hermitage, Lansdown, and Sydney College, Bath, eventually passing into the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In January 1876 he was gazetted into the 1st Battalion 17th Regiment and thence into the 12th Bombay Native Infantry.

After several other postings he was subsequently transferred to the 1st Bombay Grenadiers. With the Grenadiers he served in Burrow’s Brigade to the Helmand, and in the return march to Khushk-i-Nakhud. Lieutenant Whittuck was present with them at the battle of Maiwand, on the 27th of July, being one of three officers of the regiment to escape unscathed on that disastrous day. The trials and privations endured through the terrible retreat in which for thirty hours the troops were without food or water, and the subsequent very heavy duties which devolved upon the garrison during the siege, must have been too much for this young officer’s strength. Towards the end of August he was attacked with dysentery whilst on duty on the ramparts at Kandahar, from the effects of which he never recovered. Frank Whittuck, an ‘officer devoted to his profession’, died on 5 September 1880.