Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Private Charles Higgs, 1st Seaforth Highlanders, the only man of the regiment to be killed in action at Tel-el-Kebir

Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, 1 clasp, Tel-El-Kebir (1881 Pte. C. Higgs. 1/Sea.: Highrs:); Khedive’s Star 1882, unnamed, good very fine (2) £600-800

Private Charles Higgs, 1st Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, was killed in action at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, 13 September 1882, the only fatal casualty suffered by the Seaforths in that battle. He is also entitled to the Afghanistan Medal 1878-80, with no clasp.

Charles Higgs enlisted into the 72nd Regiment at Deptford on 4 August 1870, aged 21 years and joined the Regiment on 13 August 1870. He was stationed at Cork until sailing for India early in 1871. He never returned to England. Among his stations in India between 1871 and 1878 were Delhi, Umballa, Peshawar, Cherat, Nowshera, Amritsar and Sialkot.
 
The 72nd were prominent in the Second Afghan War 1878-80. They fought at Peiwar Kotal, Charasia and Kabul, took part in General Roberts' famous march from Kabul to Kandahar and fought in the Battle of Kandahar. Higgs appears on the Afghanistan Medal roll, entitled to the medal without clasp.

On the musters he appears as 'Detachment' for most of the time between April 1879 and October 1880, by which time he was back in India, at Lucknow. He remained at Lucknow until going to Aden at the beginning of 1882, and then to Egypt later in the year where he was killed at Tel-el-Kebir.