Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, Waziristan 1919-21 (Lt.-Col. C. .C. .R. Murphey [sic], 2-19 Pjbis.) good very fine £200-300

M.I.D. London Gazette 5 April 1916.

Charles Cecil Rowe Murphy was born in 1872, the son of Colonel Thomas Murphy, a Crimean veteran. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant, Suffolk Regiment, 1893, and served with the Regiment during the Boer War (entitled Q.S.A. and three clasps, and K.S.A. and three clasps). He transferred to the Indian Army in 1909, and was present at the Delhi Durbar in 1911. He was 1 of 13 Army Officers attached to the Naval Intelligence Staff for services against gun-runners and pirates in the Persian Gulf, Straits of Ormuz and the Sea of Oman, 19 October 1909 - 1 August 1914 (entitled N.G.S. with ‘Persian Gulf 1909-1914 clasp).

At the outbreak of the Great War Murphy was appointed Chief of Intelligence in Mesopotamia under General Sir Arthur Barrett, for which he was mentioned in despatches and given the brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel. Early in 1917 he went to German East Africa, where he commanded a Battalion. In 1918 he was appointed Intelligence Officer to the Admiral, Aegean Sea, and when Turkey sued for peace he was sent to Constantinople in charge of a Naval and Military Mission. There he had an audience with the Sultan of Turkey and was afterwards employed as G.S.O. 1st Grade at the Turkish War Office.

In 1919 Murphy took part in the Afghan War and in the Mahsud Campaign of 1919-20. He then went to the Arab rebellion in Iraq and on to the campaign in N.W. Persia (entitled G.S.M. with two clasps). He served as Military Attache at the British Legation in Teheran and, on his return to India, served during the Molpah Rebellion in 1921.

Murphy retired in 1924, and resided in Littlehampton. He subsequently undertook the compilation of the History of the Suffolk Regiment, 1914-1927, and was Gold Staff Officer at the Coronation of George VI at Westminster Abbey. He died in November 1955.

Sold with a large amount of copied research, and several photographic images of the recipient in uniform.