Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The MacGregor Memorial Medal for 1913 awarded to Captain B. N. Abbay, 27th Light Cavalry

MacGregor Memorial Medal, silver, large type, 70mm (Awarded to Captain B. N. Abbay 27th Light Cavalry, for Valuable Reconnaissance Work, 1913) good very fine and scarce £1800-2200

The MacGregor Memorial Medal was founded in 1888 as a Memorial to the late Major-General Sir Charles MacGregor, as an award for outstanding military reconnaissance of exploration, in the remote areas of India or on its frontiers, which produced new information of value to the defence of India. Most journeys involved considerable risk. Hazards could include hostile tribes, armed brigands, extremes of climate, harsh terrain, or dangerous animals. It was envisaged that two awards would be made annually; a large silver medal to officers, and a small silver medal to other ranks. If there were no deserving cases in a particular year, no award would be made, and in a few years an additional award was ‘specially awarded’, as in the case of this recipient. For specially valuable work a gold medal of the smaller size could be awarded whenever the Council deemed it desirable.

The MacGregor Memorial Medal is the only exclusively military award, instituted during British rule, which continues to be granted to the Republic of India’s armed forces. The criteria of endeavour for both officers and other ranks to become eligible for the award have been rigorously upheld. In the one hundred years from its founding until 1987, only 114 awards have been made: 7 in gold, 59 large silver medals to officers, and 48 small silver medals to non-commissioned officers and other ranks.

Bryan Norman Abbay was born on 6 June 1881, at Earl Soham, Suffolk. He joined the 2nd Battalion Essex Regiment in February 1900, obtaining promotion at the following October. The Battalion was in Burma, but went to India in 1901, and near the end of the year proceeded to South Africa, where he saw a good deal of service on the Blockhouse Line (Queen’s Medal, 4 clasps). He then transferred to the 1st Battalion Essex Regiment and returned to India, where he was transferred in 1904 to the 27th Light Cavalry, Indian Army, in which he became a Captain in 1909. For five years he served on the Northern Frontier of Burma and was awarded the MacGregor Memorial Medal for reconnaissance work in the unexplored country to the north of Burma. He married in October 1913, Henrietta Maud Julius, youngest daughter of Villers Alexander Julius, of Colombo, Ceylon. His best man was Mr F. V. Clerke, Political Officer of the Northern Frontier, Burma, who was associated with Captain Abbay in the settling of the Tawlong feud of 17 years standing in Upper Burma. Having served with both the 27th Light Cavalry and the Royal Fusiliers, he ended the First World War as acting Lieutenant-Colonel in command of his own regiment, the 27th Light Cavalry. Post war service saw him commended for service in the Afghan War of 1919 (despatches London Gazette 3 August 1920) and in Waziristan in 1919-20 (despatches London Gazette 10 June 1921). In 1926 he was appointed Colonel of the 18th King Edward’s Own Cavalry, and in the New Year’s Honours List of 1931 he was appointed to the Order of the Bath (C.B.). Colonel Abbay retired to Kenya before the outbreak of war in 1939 and died on 19 January 1947, on a fishing expedition at Lamu, Kenya.