Orders, Decorations and Medals

Afghanistan 1878-80, no clasp (Lieut. W. H. Bishop, 2/11th Regt.) nearly extremely fine

William Henry Bishop was born in India on 28 June 1855, eldest son of Captain William Louis Mosheim Bishop, 46th Bengal Native Infantry. His father was killed on the 9th July 1857, by the mutineers of the 9th Bengal Cavalry and the 46th Bengal Native Infantry at Sialkot in the Punjab, young William and his little brother managing to escape with their mother into the fort at the station.

William Bishop joined the 11th Regiment in 1874, having received a Queen’s Indian Cadetship in recognition of his father’s services, and proceeded to India with the 2nd Battalion in November of that year. On the regiment being ordered to Afghanistan in July 1880, Lieutenant Bishop took part with it, as an Interpreter, in its advance into the enemy’s country. However, the hardships he endured in the disastrous march through the Bolan Pass in the burning summer heat completely sapped his health, and within a month of reaching Kandahar he died of dysentry on 23 November 1880. Sold with photograph of the Regimental Memorial in Exeter Cathedral and extract with portrait from Shadbolt.