Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A scarce Arctic exploration group of four awarded to Captain George Pirie, Royal Navy, 2nd Lieutenant of the yacht Pandora on her voyage to the Arctic in 1876

Jubilee 1897, silver (Commander R.N. H.M.S. Triton); Arctic 1876 (Lt. Geo. Pirie, 2nd Lt., Pandora); Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, undated reverse, no clasp (Lieut., R.N. H.M.S. Rambler); Khedive’s Star 1884, mounted as worn in order listed, nearly extremely fine (4) £3000-3500

George Pirie was born in Argyllshire on 31 July 1850, and was educated at St Andrews. He entered the Royal Navy as a Cadet in the Britannia on leaving school in 1865, becoming Midshipman in 1866 and Navigating Sub-Lieutenant in July 1870. He commenced his surveying career in 1874 when he was appointed as Sub-Lieutenant and Navigating Officer to the Porcupine, engaged in surveying on the east coast of England. In the summers of 1875 and 1876, he had Admiralty permission to accompany Lieutenant Allen Young, R.N.R., in the yacht Pandora, on voyages to the Arctic as Second Lieutenant.

The steam yacht Pandora was owned and commanded by Allen Young, a Royal Naval Reserve Lieutenant whose Arctic experience had begun as Sailing Master of the Fox under McClintock during 1857-59. With the object of assisting the government Arctic Expedition which set out in May 1875 under the command of Captain George S. Nares, he took the Pandora to Baffin’s Bay and collected Nares’despatches from the Carey Islands. He then attempted to make the North West Passage but found his way blocked by heavy ice in Peel Strait and was compelled to return home. At the Admiralty’s request he again took Pandora to the Arctic the following summer and managed to land despatches for Nares at Cape Isabella and Littleton Island, but, finding no trace of the other two ships, returned home again.

Promoted to Lieutenant in October 1876, Pirie went to the China Station early the next year, serving first in the Nassau and then in the Magpie. He was Lieutenant of Rambler during the during the naval and military operations in the Eastern Soudan, at Suakin, 1884-85, but otherwise, between 1876 and 1888, he was in China, Japan and Borneo, engaged in survey work, and from 1889 to 1893 had charge of the Admiralty Survey of Queensland. In the following year and until 1898, Pirie had charge of the Admiralty Survey once more of the East Coast of England. During the time that he was Admiralty Surveyor, he surveyed the principal rivers of China, Korea, Borneo, and the greater part of the coast of China, a large portion of the Queensland coast and the Endeavour River.

From 1889 to 1893, Pirie commanded the Paluma, a gunboat lent by the Queensland Government in Australia for the survey of their coasts and the inner passage. Promoted to Commander in 1892, Pirie was appointed Naval Assistant in the Hydrographic Department in October 1893, but was at sea again in 1894 commanding Triton on the east coast of England. He made annual surveys of the Duke of Edinburgh Channel, and one of the Goodwins in 1896, and commanded the Triton at the Jubilee Review in June 1897. He retired from the Navy in 1898 with the rank of Captain, and later became Conservator of the River Humber. Captain George Pirie died at North Ferriby, Hull, on 2 December 1907. Sold with full research including detailed notes and copy photographs of the several surveying vessels that he served aboard.