Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Military General Service 1793-1814, 1 clasp, Java (C. Harris, Lieut. Bengal Arty.) nearly extremely fine and scarce £1,600-£2,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of the late Roy Painter.

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Provenance: Tombs Collection, Glendining, April 1918; Glendining, July 1927; Spink July 1972; Dix Noonan Webb, June 2000.

Only 46 M.G.S. Medals issued to officers and men in the Honourable East India Company Service, mostly for Java including 3 officer and three men of the Bengal Artillery.

Charles Harris was born in Madras in January 1788. He was a Cadet of 1804, and was appointed Lieutenant in the Bengal Artillery in May 1805. He became Captain-Lieutenant in April 1812, Captain in February 1818, and resigned from the service in March 1819. Lieutenant Harris served in the operations against Dhundia Khan in October 1807, in the attacks against the forts at Komona and Ganauri, Lieutenant Harris being wounded in the assault of the former place on 18 November, whilst acting as engineer; in the operations against the Jats in 1809, including the settlement of Hariana and action at Bhawani; as Lieutenant, 7th Company 1st Battalion, Bengal Artillery, at the capture of Java in 1811 (Medal); in the expedition to Borneo in 1813 for the operations at Sambas; and in the operations against the Rajah of Boni, in Celebes in June 1816.

Captain Harris married at Sourabaya, Java, and had a son, Charles, born at Sourabaya in October 1817, who became a General in the Indian Army. Captain Harris died at Pembridge Square, London, on 30 January 1871, aged 83.