Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Addiscombe Military Seminary, Pollock Medal, 1st type (1848-55), by B. Wyon, obverse: bust of Major-General Sir George Pollock facing left, in uniform, wearing the star of the Knight Grand Cross of the Bath and the Cabul Medal 1842, with a circumscription in four bands, inner - ‘Major General Sir George Pollock G.C.B. Bengal Artillery’; intermediate 1 - ‘Treachery avenged - British honor vindicated - Disasters retrieved - British captives delivered’; intermediate 2 - ‘Kyber Pass Forced - Jellalabad relieved - Victories of Mamoo Khail - Jugdulluck - Tezeen - Istalif’; outer - ‘To commemorate eminent services; Cabul 1842’; reverse: ‘Military Seminary Addiscombe Pollock Prize, Presented by the British inhabitants of Calcutta and awarded by the Court of Directors of the East India Company to the Most Distinguished Cadet of the Season’, (John Magee McNeile, June 1856), gold, 58mm., 84.5g., in its original B. Wyon, Regent Street fitted case of issue, ref: B.H.M. 2058, Mayo p.249-255, extremely fine, a handsome and rare medal £2800-3200

John Magee McNeile was born on 4 March 1837, son of the Rev. Hugh McNeile, D.D., Liverpool. He was educated at Cheltenham College, where he was Senior Mathematical Scholar (1852), and at Addiscombe Military College, 1854-56, from where he passed out First Engineer with Firsts in Mathematical and Military Surveying (Pollock Medal, Sword). 2nd Lieutenant, Bengal Engineers, 1856; Lieutenant, 1858; Captain, Royal Engineers, 1868; Major, 1874; Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, 1881; Lieutenant-Colonel, 1884; Brevet Colonel, 1885; Chief Engineer (2nd Class) and Joint Secretary to the Government of Bengal, Department of Public Works.