The Collection of Medals Formed by Bill and Angela Strong

A fine Victorian K.C.B. group of seven awarded to General Sir Richard Kelly, 34th Foot, who was wounded and taken P.O.W. in the Crimea and again wounded in the Mutiny, during which conflicts he held senior command and was many times mentioned in despatches

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, K.C.B. (Military) Knight Commander’s set of insignia, comprising neck badge, gold and enamels, and breast star, by R. & S. Garrard & Co., London, silver, with gold and enamel applique centre, the Bath badge lacking inter-arm lions and reverse centrepiece and motto, in addition to overall enamel damage, including the Star; Crimea 1854-56, 1 clasp, Sebastopol (Lt. Col. R. D. Kelly, 34th Regt.), engraved naming; Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Lucknow (Lt. Coll. R. D. Kelly, 34th Regt.); France, Legion of Honour, Chevalier’s breast badge, silver and enamel with gold centre, badly damaged; Turkey, Order of the Medjidie, Fifth Class breast badge, silver, gold and enamel; Turkish Crimea 1855, Sardinian die, unnamed, contact marks, nearly very fine or better unless otherwise stated (7)
£4000-5000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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K.C.B. London Gazette 1860.

Richard Denis Kelly, who was born in Colombo in the East Indies in March 1815, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Kelly (see previous Lot), was originally appointed an Ensign in the 19th Foot in March 1834, but exchanged to the 34th Foot a week or so later.

His subsequent career is extensively described (in 103pp.) in the introductory memoir written by his daughter, Mrs. W. J. Tait, for inclusion in the published version of his letters home from the front, An Officer’s Letters to His Wife During the Crimean War, and compelling reading it makes. In fact it would be impossible to do justice to such a distinguished and interesting career within the current space available, and accordingly the following summary only touches upon the salient points of his life and times.

Having served in North America and elsewhere in the interim, Kelly had been given the Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel by the time of the Crimea War, in which conflict he served with distinction, not least on the occasion he was wounded and taken P.O.W. on 22 March 1855, when he commanded a force of 1200 men on the Woronzoff Ridge in what was described as “Gordon’s Attack” after the directing engineer, Major William Gordon, R.E., afterwards of Khartoum fame.

Iindeed, Gordon fought alongside Kelly for much of the action, up until the moment he was wounded by a musket ball in the right arm. Kelly, however, continued to lead from the front. Kinglake’s history takes up the story:

‘With his newly received detachment of the 7th Fusiliers now marching westward by fours along the course of the foremost parallel, Colonel Kelly made what haste he could towards the sound of the firing; but the darkness and the state of the trench - still unfinished and encumbered with stone - made the progress of the troops somewhat slow; and the Colonel himself being unable to move at a faster pace pushed forward impatiently in advance of his men. Soon, he met Lieutenant Jordan with some of his men of the 34th (the Colonel’s own regiment), and by him was apprised that the Russians had seemingly entered a part of the trench further west. The Colonel said that our people must try to drive the enemy out, told Jordan to get his men together, informed him that the detachment of 7th Fusiliers was coming up, and then once more hastened on towards the sound of the firing.

He had gone a little way further, when - standing together in the trench - he saw a group of seven of eight soldiers whom he took in the darkness to be men of his own regiment – the 34th. So going close up to them, he directed these men to ‘fall in’ with the other men under Jordan. He was met by an uproar of outlandish cries, and found that he had been accosting the enemy. He bought out his revolver, and pointing it at the head of his nearest foe, pulled hard, though in vain, at a trigger held fast by the ‘safety catch’. Whilst lowering his weapon in order to push back the bolt, he was felled by numbers of blows laid upon him with the butt ends of muskets, and when on the ground was bayoneted in the right shoulder, in the left hand, and in the right leg, whilst also his assailants – not Russians but Albanian Christians, engaged in the enemy’s service – were so emulous in the truculent work of pounding and battering at him with the stocks of their firearms that many of the blows they were levelling intercepted each other, and the victim had not succumbed, nor even indeed lost his consciousness, when a young Russian officer no less generous than brave interposed. Standing over the prostrate Colonel, and so courageously shielding him as himself to become the recipient of some of the fiercely aimed blows, this chivalrous noble at last proved able to make good the rescue, and caused the wounded Colonel – of course as a prisoner of war- to be safely brought into the fortress.’

By Kelly’s own account - see An Officer’s Letters to His Wife During the Crimean War (copy included) - he was subsequently treated with the most generous and thoughtful kindness, by Prince Gortchakoff, General Osten-Sacken (the Commandant of Sebastopol) and by Admiral Pamphiloff, and he was exchanged in good health. Appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and awarded the 5th Class of the Turkish Medjidie, he was also twice mentioned in despatches (London Gazettes 6 and 12 April 1855 refer).

During the Indian Mutiny, Kelly not only commanded the 34th Regiment at Cawnpore, where he was wounded on 27 November 1857, and at the capture of Lucknow, but also a Column in the Oude, and a Field Force in operations on the Nepal Frontier, including the defeat of a rebel force at Bootwul, where his horse was shot, but the enemy were pushed back into the jungle, less four guns. A few days later he again closed the rebels, and in a sharp action completely routed them, with a loss of 3 more guns, in addition to 6 elephants, 30 camels, 300 horses and a great quantity of baggage. Indeed the rebels left 400 dead on the field of battle, and the 34th escaped without a single casualty.

Of the occasion when he was wounded at Cawnpore, his daughter states, ‘he was hit in the chest by a ball, but did not consider the wound serious enough to desist, and continued fighting until the end of the day, when, on retiring to rest, he found the bullet in his boot.’ And after Cawnpore, during the advance to Lucknow, Kelly first came to the notice of Sir Colin Campbell, when with six companies of the 34th he was given the task of protecting the women and children, ‘but in order to accomplish the journey considerable danger had to be encountered ... Colonel Kelly, however, so disposed of his comparatively small guard of 500 men through country extending 140 miles, and infested with mutineers, as to reach his destination with the whole of the women and children in perfect safety.’

Kelly was thanked by the Goernor-General and Commander-in-Chief for his fine work and was appointed a C.B., in addition to being mentioned in despatches on no less than seven occasions (London Gazettes 25 May, 31 May and 31 August 1858; 24 March, 20 June, 14 July and 25 July 1859 refer).

Reverting to half-pay in 1864, Kelly became a Major-General in 1868 and commanded the Cork District 1874-77 and the Colchester District 1877-78, and became a full General in 1880. His final accolade was his appointment to the Colonelcy of his old regiment in 1889, and he died in July 1897.

Sold with the recipient’s original warrant for the K.C.B., dispensing with a formal investiture, dated March 1861, his commission warrant for his appointment as a Lieutenant in the 34th Regiment, dated 27 October 1836, an old copy of a letter of introduction to Lord Seaton, on his being embarked for Corfu in October 1845, and War Office letter of appointment as C.O. Cork District, dated 4 March 1874, together with a copy of his daughter’s book, An Officer’s Letters to His Wife During the Crimean War, and an old portrait print signed by a Russian nobleman.