Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Captain A. A. D. Weigall, 11th Regiment, late 57th Regiment, who died at Kandahar in December 1880

South Africa 1877-79, 1 clasp, 1879 (Capt. A. A. D. Weigall. 57th Foot.); Afghanistan 1878-80, no clasp (Captain, A. A. D. Weigall, 2/11th Regt.) lightly toned, nearly extremely fine (2) £1,200-£1,500

Arthur Archibald Denne Weigall was born in Dunkirk, France, on 21 September 1844, youngest son of the Rev. Edward Weigall, Incumbent of Buxton, Derbyshire, and Rural Dean. He was educated at Macclesfield Grammar School and afterwards at Rossall School, and was commissioned an Ensign in the 76th Regiment on 5 July 1864, and promoted to Lieutenant on 12 July 1867. His service in the 76th was spent mainly in the East Indies, and he was Adjutant of the regiment from April 1875 to October 1876. Promoted to Captain on 11 October 1876, he transferred to the 57th Foot on 10 February 1877. From March 1877 until February 1879, he served in Ceylon until proceeding with the 57th to Natal to serve in the Zulu War. He was present at the relief of Eshowe and at the battle of Ginghilovo, at which engagement he was struck by a spent ball; but though his arm was contused he did not return his name in the list of wounded.

Shortly after returning home from South Africa, he was married by his father, to Alice H. L. Cowan, at St Jude’s, Southsea. On the same day, he resigned his combatants commission and was appointed Paymaster with the honorary rant of Captain in the Army Pay Department. As Paymaster Captain of the 2nd Battalion, 11th Foot, he took part in the Second Afghan War, but died of dysentery at Kandahar on 22 December 1880. He is commemorated on a memorial to those men of the Bombay Army who died in Afghanistan 1879-81, in Colaba Church, Bombay. His son Arthur became a noted Egyptologist and was a contemporary of Howard Carter and others at the time of the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun, at which time he covered the story as a correspondent for the Daily Mail.

The photograph that erroneously appears in the catalogue is not of Captain Weigall, but of an unrelated Crimean veteran