Orders, Decorations and Medals

Pair: Lieutenant-Colonel D. W. G. James, 2nd (Queen’s) Regiment

South Africa 1834-53 (Capt., 2nd Regt.); China 1857-60, 2 clasps, Taku Forts 1860, Pekin 1860 (Major, 1st Bn. 2nd Regt.) impressed naming, nearly extremely fine and a scarce pair (2) £900-1200

Demetrius Wyndham Grevis-James was born in Yorkshire on 3 June 1820, son of Demetrius Grevis-James, of Ightham Court, late High Sheriff of Kent. He was educated at Tunbridge and Christ Church, Oxford, and purchased an Ensigncy in the 2nd Queen’s Regiment on 31 January 1840. He became Lieutenant in December 1840 and Captain in June 1846, again purchasing both commissions. In September 1840 he went out to India and served with the Queen’s Royals in the campaign in the Southern Mahratta Country in 1844, including the storm and capture of the Fortress of Punella, and during part of the campaign in the Concan and Sawant Warree Country in 1844 and ‘45. He next served in the Kaffir War of 1851-52 (Medal); and with the expedition north of the Orange River in 1852 and ‘53. Captain Grevis-James remained at the Cape of Good Hope until May 1854 and was promoted to Major in December of that year. He accompanied the regiment to China in 1860 and was present at the actions of the 12th and 14th August, 18th and 21st September, and the advance on Pekin (Medal with two Clasps). In March 1861, on the death of his father, he retired by the sale of his commission to succeed to his father’s estates at Ightham Court, near Sevenoaks, Kent, and became Lord of the Manors of Ightham, Wrotham and Stanstead.