Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Captain Sir Henry Braund, Kt., who served as Adjutant of the 5th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment in Gallipoli, where he kept the unit’s war diary and was fortunate to emerge unscathed from the action at Chunuk Bair in August 1915: he afterwards enjoyed a successful legal career including senior posts held in Burma and India

1914-15 Star (Lieut. H. B. L. Braund, Wilts. R.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. H. B. L. Braund); Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937, together with a set of related miniature dress medals (including India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, Afghanistan N.W.F. 1919), generally good very fine (11) £250-300

Henry Benedict Linthwaite Braund was born in March 1893, the son of Marwood Leonard Boyd Braund, and was educated at Rugby and St. John’s College, Oxford, where he studied Law.

Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Wiltshire Regiment in August 1914, he landed with the 5th Battalion in Cape Helles, Gallipoli in July 1915. Although at one point left in charge of numerous members of the Battalion recovering from dysentery on Lemnos, he appears to have returned to his unit in time for the costly action at Chunuk Bair on 8 August - he took over as Adjutant from Lieutenant Belcher, who had been killed in action on the 6th. On that occasion the Turks attacked over the crest of the hill, three companies of the Wiltshires being caught in the open and all but annihilated - regimental records state ‘more than half the officers and men were never seen again.’ Amazingly, five men survived the ordeal after being rescued after 16 days. Others, it is said, were massacred by the Turks. In his capacity as Adjutant, Braund was responsible for keeping the unit’s war diary, a difficult task in view of heavy casualties and much confused fighting.

At which point Braund departed the 5th Wiltshires remains unknown, but he appears to have been attached as a Staff Captain to 10th Infantry Brigade, 4th (Quetta) Division, around May 1918; moreover, his MIC entry confirms his entitlement to the India General Service 1908-35, with clasp for ‘Afghanistan N.W.F. 1919’.

In 1920, Braund returned home, where he pursued a legal career and practised at the Chancery Bar until 1934. Taking up appointment as Judge of the High Court of Judicature in Rangoon, Burma in the latter year, he remained similarly employed until taking up a similar post at Allahabad in the United Provinces, India in 1939; this after having acted as Chairman of Committee appointed to inquire into the Burma riots of 1938-39. Latterly a Member of the Regional Food Commission, Eastern Region, India, 1943-44 and Chairman of the Bengal Foodgrains Policy Committee 1944, Braund was knighted in the following year.

Back in the U.K. he served as Judge of County Courts (Circuit No. 46) 1950-54 and Circuit No. 19 1953-64. He retired to Ettwall, near Derby and died in April 1969; papers in respect of his legal career are held by the British Library (Asian and African Studies).