Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. Including a superb collection of medals to the King’s German Legion, Police Medals from the Collection of John Tamplin and a small collection of medals to the Irish Guards

A scarce Edward VII King’s Police Medal awarded to William L. B. Souter, C.I.E., Inspector-General of Police, Bombay

King’s Police Medal, E.VII.R. (W. L. B. Souter, Dep. Insp. Gen., Indian P. (Bombay Pres.)) a few edge nicks and bruises, otherwise very fine £800-1000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Police Awards From the Collection of John Tamplin.

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K.P.M. London Gazette 9 November 1909. The reasons for his recommendation were as follows: ‘Mr Souter has always displayed marked ability and his work has been characterised by a high sense of duty, zeal and energy. In 1894 he behaved with conspicuous gallantry in an encounter with a highly criminal gang of well-armed and desperate Miana outlaws, who had already killed three village policemen. The achievement involved a forced march of 15 miles, an assault under fire on an entrenched position led by Mr Souter, and finally a desperate hand-to-hand encounter with the outlaws, in which one of the police party was killed and two wounded, before the death, disablement or capture of all the dacoits.’

William Lochiel Berkeley Souter was born on 27 February 1865, second son of Sir Frank Henry Souter, Kt., C.S.I., C.I.E. After an education at Cheltenham College, which he left in December 1882, he went to India where he was appointed Deputy Registrar of the High Court in Bombay in 1884, and joined the Indian Police in June of the same year. Over the next twenty years Souter served at many stations in India, rising steadily in the police service until his appointment, in 1906, as Commissioner of Police, Bombay City, which post his father had held before him. He was attached to the Staff of the Amir of Afghanistan in 1907, in which year, from May to August, he was also appointed Deputy Director of Criminal Intelligence under the Government of India at Simla.

Souter was appointed a Companion of the Indian Empire on 1 January 1910 and, after a considerable delay, was finally presented with the King’s Police Medal on 21 November 1910, at Bombay Castle by the Governor of Bombay. Souter had hoped, whilst on leave in England, to have been invested with his K.P.M. by the King but it was not to be and he had to wait until his return to India. He became Deputy Inspector-General of Police in about 1911 and remained as such until April 1915 when he was finally appointed Inspector-General of Police in the Bombay Presidency. From this appointment he retired on 27 February 1920.

J. C. Curry, in his book The Indian Police, recalls that there was a native ballad which celebrated a charge in 1894 led by Souter against an entrenched position occupied by a gang of Miana dacoits in Kathiawar. In this the dacoit leader met his death.

William L. B. Souter, C.I.E., K.P.M., died in Montreaux on 28 January 1945, aged 80. ‘Souter was a hard taskmaster,’ according to his obituary in The Times ‘but a most lovable man to whom one gave of one’s best, and nothing but the best satisfied him. He was a great horseman and that rare mixture of a soldier and an administrator... Souter was a great and good man.’

Approximately 100 awards of the King’s Police Medal were made during the reign of King Edward VII.