Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Private John Everson, 98th Regiment, who received separate medals for two North West Frontier expeditions in 1850 and 1858

Punjab 1848-49, no clasp (John Everson, 98th Foot.); India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, North West Frontier (2933 Pte. John Evison, 98th Foot) the date ‘1850’ neatly engraved after the regiment, note spelling of surname; India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, North West Frontier (2933 J. Evison, H.Ms. 98th Regt.) the date ‘1858’ neatly engraved after the regiment, note spelling of surname, the first with contact marks, nearly very fine, otherwise extremely fine (3) £600-£800

Provenance: Payne Collection 1910; Gordon Everson Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, March 2002.

John Everson/Evison was born at Alvergate, Norfolk, on 26 April 1827, and enlisted into the 98th Regiment at Great Yarmouth on 31 May 1847. He served during the Punjab campaign in 1848-49, and afterwards accompanied the expedition, under Lieutenant-Colonel F. Peyton, in February 1850, to the Kohat Pass, North West Frontier, to avenge the massacre of a detachment of Sappers and Miners. In April 1858 he accompanied the expedition under Major-General Sir Sydney J. Cotton, in the operations of the Sittana Field Force in Panjtar and Lower Sittana, on the North West Frontier. Everson was discharged at Chatham on 23 August 1860, and subsequently received two separate I.G.S. medals, both with the clasp North West Frontier. Whilst he would have been one of just a few men who took part in both expeditions, it was clearly by mistake that he was issued with a second medal. He later lived in Sheffield and died at Grenoside, Ecclesfield, Yorkshire, on 12 December 1905. The group is sold with a contemporary news cutting of his obituary, which gives an inaccurate statement of his services, and an illustration of him wearing these three medals taken from a contemporary publication.