Auction Catalogue

17 September 2004

Starting at 11:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part I)

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

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Lot

№ 88

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17 September 2004

Hammer Price:
£5,500

The ‘Delhi’ C.B. pair awarded to Major-General Frederick Gaitskell, Bengal Artilley, who commanded the artillery at the assault of Delhi

(a)
Order of the Bath, C.B. (Military) breast badge, 22 carat gold and enamels, hallmarked London 1857, maker’s mark ‘WN’, complete with gold ribbon buckle

(b)
Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Delhi (Lieut. Col. F. Gartskell [sic], C.B. 8th Bn. Bengal Art.) edge bruise to the second, otherwise nearly extremely fine
£2500-3000

Ex Tamplin collection, Sotheby, February 1985.

Frederick Gaitskell, the son of Thomas Gaitskell, Distiller and Wine Merchant, and Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of the 5th Regiment of Surrey Volunteers during the Napoleonic Wars, was born on 26 June 1806. He was educated under the Reverend J. Steadman at Wandsworth and was nominated for a Cadetship in the Honourable East India Company by William Stanley Clarke, on the recommendation of his father. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Bengal Artillery on leaving Addiscombe in December 1823. Promoted Lieutenant on 28 September 1827, he was advanced to the rank of Captain by Brevet on 18 December 1838, and became Adjutant and Quartermaster of the 4th Battalion, Foot Artillery, in July 1840. He served successively with the 6th, 5th and 7th Battalions in the 1840’s, and was promoted Brevet Major on 11 November 1851, and Major in his corps in May 1854. After over thirty years of uneventful regimental service, he was commanding, on the outbreak of the Mutiny, the 8th Battalion, Bengal Artillery, which he subsequently took to join the hard-pressed British enclave on Delhi Ridge.

When Brigadier Garbett, commanding the artillery before Delhi, was wounded, Gaitskell succeeded him, and was therefore ultimately responsible for the artillery preparation prior to the assault on 14 September, on which so much depended. His services at Delhi were subsequently acknowledged in Brigadier-General Archdale Wilson’s despatch (
London Gazette 15 December 1857). Two despatches written by Gaitskell detailing the artillery’s services during the siege were published in the supplement to the London Gazette on 15 December 1857.

Gaitskell was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel, with effect from 14 September 1857, and subsequently appointed a Companion of the Bath for his services at the siege of Delhi (
London Gazette 22 January 1859). He afterwards commanded the 4th Battalion and was made full Colonel on 18 February 1861. He retired the following year and was subsequently granted the honorary rank of Major-General. He married twice, firstly at the British Embassy in Paris, Harriet, the eldest daughter of Major John Hamilton, formerly of the 42nd Regiment, and secondly, Jane, daughter of Mr Ashley, of Ashley St Legers. General Gaitskell died at ‘Lisburn’, Torquay, Devon, on 9 February 1901, at the age of ninety-four. He bequeathed his C.B. and Mutiny medal to his step-daughter’s husband, Captain William Boyle Moore, of the Hampshire Regiment.

Refs: Illustrated London News; United Service Journal ; Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research; Somerset House Wills.