Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A regimentally unique D.C.M. group of three awarded to Private J. Warburton, Durham Light Infantry, for gallantry at Ginniss on 30 December 1885, where he saved the life of Lieutenant-Colonel A. C. B. Haggard - his actions were mentioned by the latter officer in his book ‘Under Crescent and Star’

Distinguished Conduct Medal, V.R. (2330. Pte. J. Warburton. 2/Durh: L.I. 30th. Dec: 85.); Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, undated reverse, no clasp (2330. Pte. J. Warburton. 2/Durh: L.I.); Khedive’s Star 1884-6, unnamed as issued, edge bruise to second, otherwise nearly extremely fine (3) £3000-4000

D.C.M. awarded for the battle of Giniss, 30 December 1885. Recommendation submitted to the Queen, 16 March 1886.

John Warburton attested for the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry in 1881, and after a period with the Regiment in Gibraltar arrived in Egypt in April 1885. He was attached to the 1 Battalion Egyptian Army in November 1885. At Giniss, Warburton served as Orderly to Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Haggard (elder brother of the novelist Rider Haggard). Warburton’s officer was to become a published author himself, and Haggard records his time in Egypt in his book Under Crescent And Star.

Waburton features in Haggard’s book, especially for the battle of Giniss during the clearing of the villages, when he saved Haggard’s life:

‘We next tried to effect an entrance to the loop-holed houses on the river-side. Here we found no doors at all, but plenty of small loop-holes, from one of which the officer with me, an Egyptian lieutenant named Mahomed Hamdi, was shot dead at about fifteen paces’ distance. I nearly lost my own life too at this period in an unexpected manner. A Dervish had poked out his rifle from a loop-hole I had not noticed, within about five yards of my head, and was covering me, when my English orderly-room clerk, Private John Warburton of the Durham Light Infantry, saw it, as the song says:-

“Not too soon and not too late,
But just in time.”

He gave me a tremendous shout, just in time to make me jump aside and avoid the shot.

Leaving a section of men lining the Nile bank, under good cover among palm-trees, to keep up a fire on the loop-holes facing that way, we went to try another plan. We now entered one or two detached houses, finding in them some living, and some dead men who had been killed by the Blacks before; but we left all dead behind us, and got another man killed ourselves. An athletic corporal, named Mahomed Daoud, showed himself remarkably active with his bayonet among the Dervishes in these houses, jumping upon them instantly and running them through before they had time to cover him with their rifles. In spite of the disagreeable nature of the business still to be done, it had to be accomplished. The main block had to be entered, and enter it we did, from the side nearest to the ravine and the fort at Kosheh. There was certainly just a little hesitation at first; but once half-a-dozen men had got in, the fellows all went at it with a will, going straight at every low doorway and through the narrow passages and rooms from nearly end to end of these connected houses, shooting and bayoneting all they came across. It was, owing to the lowness of the doors and the built-up traverses across the passages, the most difficult place to work one’s way through, but the Egyptians did it well.

Unfortunately, however, there were two fortified rooms from which we could not dislodge the enemy, although only a very small number of them were left alive. One of these was the room from which Lieutenant Hamdi had been killed, and we could neither bring the gun to bear on it, from a distance, nor get into it from the other houses. However, Hamdi’s body was still lying outside the loop-holes of this room, and as we could not leave it there, we had to go round to the river-side again to fetch it away. While doing so, taking four men with a stretch, and Warburton and a couple of Egyptians to try and keep down the fire from some loop-holes opposite, we got another man killed. Private Warburton, too, who was most plucky and useful, standing out in the open and keeping up a well-directed and rapid fire on the loop-hole nearest our stretcher party, had a very narrow escape. While his own rifle was up at the “present”, one of the enemy’s bullets passed through his sleeve at the shoulder close to his head, but did not even touch the skin! We managed to get off poor Hamdi’s body without any more loss....

After the fight officers commanding corps were requested to send in the names of officers and men who had distinguished themselves. In addition to the names of some two or three Egyptians officers.... Private John Warburton’s name was sent in, and I am glad to say he was given the Distinguished Conduct Medal. He well deserved it; for although he had never been in action before, he behaved during all that village-fighting with the utmost calmness, sense, and pluck, and was of the very greatest use in every way, just when a sensible and plucky fellow was most wanted.’

1 of only 2 D.C.M.s to the Durham Light Infantry for the Egyptian Campaign 1882-89, and regimentally unique for Giniss.