Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Colonel G. S. Davies, 6th Dragoon Guards, late 10th Hussars, who was wounded in hand to hand combat with mutineers after a successful charge against an enemy gun position at Kukerowlee in April 1858

Crimea 1854-56, 1 clasp, Sebastopol, naming neatly erased; Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Delhi (Lieut. Geo. S. Davies, 6th Dragn. Gds.); Turkish Crimea 1855, Sardinian issue, unnamed, mounted as worn on a contemporary silver triple-buckle pin brooch, light contact marks, otherwise good very fine (3) £900-£1,200

George Silvester Davies was gazetted Cornet in the 11th Light Dragoons on 18 October 1853, and exchanged into the 10th Husars on 2 December following. He arrived in the Crimea as a Lieutenant in the 10th Hussars in June 1855 and subsequently participated in the battle of Tchernaya and the fall of Sebastopol (Medal with clasp and Turkish medal). After transferring to the 6th Dragoon Guards in August 1856, he saw extensive service during the Indian Mutiny, having been present with the Carbineers at the actual outbreak of the rebellion at Meerut on 10 May 1857, the actions of the Hindun, 30th and 31st May, battle of Budleekeserai, siege and fall of Delhi, and subsequent operations under Brigadier Showers; also the affair at Kukerowlee (wounded), taking of Bareilly, affairs of Majidia, Churdal and Bankee, and pursuit to the river Raptee (Medal with clasp). Promoted to Captain on 3 July 1860, he was appointed Adjutant to the Cavalry Depot at Canterbury on 2 August 1862. He was promoted to Major on 1 April 1870, to Lieutenant-Colonel on 1 October 1877, and retired with the rank of Colonel on 1 July 1881. He was still alive in 1908.

At Kukerowlee on 30 April 1858, the cavalry were ordered forward at a gallop. A squadron of the Carbineers, under the command of Captain Foster, charged a gun, and captured it. On they rushed, but they had not gone a few hundred yards when suddenly men and horse dashed over into a deep ravine filled with mutineers. A desperate struggle took place. Foster, as his horse was struggling out of the gulf, was attacked by the fanatics, who wounded him in three places, and in a moment he would have been a dead man if Troop Sergeant-Major Bouchier had not come to his aid. Many of the troopers suffered, and of the three officers with him Captain Betty and Lieutenants Davies and Graham were wounded. Amongst the other casualties that day was Major-General N. Penny, C.B., whose body was found not far from the captured gun, stripped and terribly mangled. His horse when wounded must have dashed madly into the ranks of the enemy.