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

An interesting campaign pair to General Sir J. L. Vaughan, G.C.B., 5th Punjab Infantry (later Vaughan’s Rifles), a special correspondent for the Times during the second Afghan War

(a) Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Major I. L. Vaughan, 5th Punjab Infy.)

(b) India General Service 1854-94, 2 clasps, North West Frontier, Umbeyla (Lieut.-Col. J. L. Vaughan, Comndt. 5th Punjab Infy.) light contact marks, otherwise good very fine (2) £1500-2000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Brian Ritchie Collection of H.E.I.C. and British India Medals.

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John Luther Vaughan, the fourth son of the Rev Edward Vaughan, of Leicester, was born on 6 March 1820 and was educated at Rugby, where by his own account he failed to share the enthusiasm for school-life felt by the author of Tom Browne’s Schooldays. He was no believer in ‘the occult influence of Dr. Arnold’s personality’, and was nothing if not outspoken in his sole encounter with the great man. The schoolboy Vaughan, returning from a coaching inn at Dunchurch in a state of intoxication, was reported by an ill-natured servant to his housemaster who in turn sent for the Reverend Doctor. Arnold was cracking down on drinking and in this direction he had been largely successful, often filling the offenders with a deep sense of remorse and even reducing the most loutish youths to tears. However, on asking Vaughan some question as to his motive, the wavering schoolboy told the headmaster, “You are drunk, Sir.”

Expelled from Rugby, Vaughan studied under a clergyman at Leicester, though anxious to follow a military career. His widowed mother lacked the funds to support him as an officer in a British regiment, and he considered himself doomed by the prospect of varsity life. Then in 1840 a Cadetship in the Bengal Infantry was offered and on 12 October of the same year he sailed for India, arriving at Calcutta on 21 February 1841. His next ambition was to avoid service with Sepoys and join one of the Bengal European regiments. He was, however, persuaded by friends against this course and accepted without appeal his nomination to an Ensigncy in the 21st N.I. a thousand miles away at Moradabad. After an expensive journey he could ill afford, he joined his corps and soon fell in with an old school fellow, Lieutenant Chambers, the Interpreter and Quartermaster of the regiment, who at Rugby had won considerable acclaim for a ‘fistic encounter with a noted bully of the town twice his age and height’. Chambers’ great zeal for his soldiering was shared by Vaughan, but by none of the other officers, old or young. The regiment had not seen service since Bhurtpoore in 1826, and further suffered from the fact that Moradabad was a single regiment station. In short Vaughan was deeply disappointed with the 21st which in every point fell far short of his ideal.

Having qualified in Hindustani at Fort William, Vaughan, through the patronage of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Jasper Nicolls, was appointed Acting Interpreter and Quartermaster to the 53rd N.I. at Meerut, which provided a convenient stepping stone to a minor appointment in the Commissariat Department which promisingly was attached to Sir Hugh Gough’s field force that was about to invade Gwalior. Vaughan, eager for his first taste of battle, approached Major-General John Littler (see Lot 33) and further enhanced his prospects by asking to serve as an extra A.D.C. if and when Littler’s brigade was engaged. Littler consented and on 29 December 1843, Vaughan, mounted on a powerful country-bred horse, found his way to the fore in the battle of Maharajpoor.

In a letter written immediately after the battle Vaughan described his baptism of fire: ‘And now began a scene which I had often burned to be a sharer in: as we (the 39th Foot and the 56th Native Infantry) advanced, they got our range exactly, and every shot came plump into the column. I speak of the 39th, as I was with them, the 56th being more to the right. If it had not been that the ground was very soft (having been lately ploughed up, and chiefly covered with young wheat) the ricochet of the shot must have killed many more. The men generally fell by twos, front and rear rank men; of course we could not stop then to render them any assistance, so poor fellows were left where they fell, to take their chance of reaching the field hospital in the rear. It seemed an awful while before we got to the village; when 300 or 400 yards from it, the order was given to deploy into line ... they commenced firing grape, canister, old iron, horse-shoes, etc., and anything they could cram in, and here we lost most of the men who fell. The sound of the shells was unmistakable, even to a novice, and anything but pleasant. However they were quickly stopped by the British bayonets of the 39th and 56th. The battery presented a most curious sight. The guns, which were painted blue and red, were blackened with smoke, and at the foot of each lay ten or twelve men on whom the bayonet had left its deadly mark

... At this moment I was ordered by the General to go to the officer commanding the 56th, and direct him to dress his regiment ready for the rush into the guns. I delivered the message, but in returning to the General’s side, my horse, which had been in a very excited state throughout, became perfectly unmanageable, and went straight away for the enemy’s battery! I saw that my only chance was to pull him up instantly, so stooping forward I laid hold of the head-stall, and wrenched his head round. In doing this my curb-bit came in two! I can only suppose that the horse was as much surprised as myself, for it quietened him at once. I dismounted, waited till the 39th came up, and then, letting him go (for a led horse would be rather an encumbrance in charging a batttery), I fell in with the Grenadiers of the 39th, and had the honour of making the final charge with them ... I do not make any mention of the horrors of battle - the dreadful wounds exhibited both by horses and men. They are such as I shall never forget, and yet with all this I would willingly sacrifice everything I possess hereafter, for one more day like December 29, 1843.’

Vaughan was mentioned in Littler’s despatch, but more important to him was the award of his first medal. ‘I am afraid it was owing chiefly to the desire to exhibit this decoration as quickly as possible to my comrades of the 21st, that I resolved to rejoin my regiment instead of returning to my duties, as I might have done with the 53rd N.I. at Meerut. I had in my boyhood read in one of Marryat’s novels of a young hero who, after his first action, returned to his friends, “with the bronze of battle on his brow”! I almost fancied myself such a young hero, and thought to display the “bronze of battle” which I had acquired at Maharajpoore to the admiring eyes of comrades and the regimental womankind!’

He rejoined the 21st at Barrackpore, slipping into the post of Interpreter and Quartermaster recently vacated by Chambers, and shortly afterwards found some justification for his thinly disguised contempt for the Bengal Sepoy. The issue of a new item of equipment, which the Sepoys were obliged to pay for through stoppages in their pay, caused resentment towards the young Quartermaster. Groups of Sepoys collected in the lines to grumble amongst themselves, and a ‘mutinous scoundrel’ threw a stone at Vaughan. Vaughan reported the incident to the peppery old Colonel who could scarcely be persuaded to leave his hookah in order to look into the matter. When he eventually went down to the lines he harangued the men in a jocular manner, and, to Vaughan’s chagrin, ordered the release of the ringleaders whom Vaughan had arrested. ‘From that day’, wrote Vaughan, ‘a deep distrust of the Sepoys took possession of me ... I regarded with aversion the thought that my life was to be spent with men whom I now saw to be ready to mutiny for a trivial cause, and who had shown that they held their officers in no real respect or affection.’ And this was 1844! A few months later Vaughan became Adjutant, and notwithstanding his new found feelings, he resolved to turn the 21st into ‘the smartest regiment in the Army’. By 1850 the corps had a reputation second to none for discipline and smartness, and when the Mutiny broke out in 1857, the 21st was the only regiment at Peshawar which Sir Sydney Cotton (see Lot 41) allowed to retain its arms. The 21st survived to become the 1st Native Infantry post Mutiny.

When Sir Hugh Gough succeded Nicolls, Vaughan lost the patronage of the C-in-C and was unable to obtain any appointment during the Sikh Wars, though his applications were many. He was so desperate to get to the front that he familiarised himself with ‘the science of electricity’ and submitted a wheeze by which he thought he might be able to explode mines under the Sikh camps with an electric battery. His hare-brained scheme was rejected out of hand, but it stuck in the mind of Sir Henry Lawrence that a young officer should go to such lengths, and five years later, when casting about for officers for the newly raised Punjab Irregular Frontier Force, he wrote to Vaughan. Vaughan called upon Sir Henry at Lahore, through which the 21st were passing, to learn the nature of his future employment, and was bidden to luncheon where he met John Lawrence and a fellow Old Rugbeian by the name Hodson who was evidently in favour with the Lawrences and was employed by them as a sort of military secretary. Also present was Sir Henry’s A.D.C., a son of Dr. Arnold, who later wrote a novel set in India which Vaughan liked to think met with little success.

Gazetted second in command of the 2nd Punjab Infantry at Kohat, Vaughan at once fell into temporary command of the regiment, and became associated with the great men of the frontier school - John Nicholson, Reynell Taylor, John Coke, Sam Browne, Wilde, Daly, Keyes and the rest. In the summer of 1850, Vaughan was placed in command of a mixed force of about 1,000 men at Nurree to protect the salt mines against incursions by the Wuzeeris. ‘I passed the next nine months in command of this Nurree post. I was the only European, officer or man, and spent my time, not on the whole unpleasantly, in exploring a then unknown country, and in making friends, according to my instructions, with the people of the valley. I soon acquired a colloquial knowledge of the language they spoke - Pushtoo or Afghanee - and the idea then occurred to me of constructing a grammar of the language, a task never seriously attempted before. In this I eventually succeeded, and published it two years later in Calcutta. It was, of course, very elementary and unpretending, but was found useful by my comrades of the Force, and gained me credit with the Punjab Government and with my chiefs, General Hodgson [qv] and Neville Chamberlain [qv]. The latter, in subsequent years, in his tours of inspection, often used me as his confidential interpreter where secrecy was desirable.’

In 1851 Vaughan was promoted to the command of the 5th Punjab Infantry at Dera Ghazi Khan in the lower Trans-Indus country. In the autumn of 1854 he was laid low while staying at the club house used by ‘Piffer’ officers on shooting expeditions in the Trans-Indus mountains with an abcess in the hand. In the absence of a doctor his condition became serious, and he was subsequently advised to take furlough to England. He sailed in April 1855 from Bombay and fell in with a like minded officer of the Madras Army. The Crimean War was at its height and they agreed ‘it would be a fine thing if we could get service in the Turkish contingent, and spend our furlough in fighting the Russians, instead of amusing ourselves in England’. Though anxious to serve before Sebastopol, Vaughan and his friend were subsequently employed at the headquarters at Kertch which soon proved to be the backwater that it was. The closest he came to the Russians was when he took part in a reconnaissance of the Spit of Arabat in a Royal Navy gun boat.

War service and leave complete, Vaughan rejoined the 5th P.I. at Kohat in early 1857 a few months before the Bengal Mutiny erupted. One evening in mid May he received a message from Chamberlain with news that the Meerut garrison had mutinied and ordering him to secure the important bridge of boats at Attock then in the hands of the 55th N.I. He set out with his regiment that night, and after four long marches entered the old Sikh fort at Attock. He then sent one of his three British officers to relieve the bridge guard of the 55th. At first the Sepoys refused to move without orders from their own C.O., Colonel Spottiswode, but as the latter was miles away the British officer threatened to use force and the guard was eventually persuaded to withdraw and rejoin the main body of their corps at Mardan. Vaughan then received further orders from John Lawrence ‘and his able coadjutors, Neville Chamberlain, Sydney Cotton, Herbert Edwardes, and John Nicholson, who at that time formed a sort of committee of public safety at Peshawar’, to leave half his regiment at Attock and proceed with all possible haste with the rest to a rendezvous with Nicholson four miles from Mardan as the 55th was now considered unreliable despite Spottiswode’s protestations to the contrary.

The rendezvous with Nicholson was made shortly after sunrise, and together they approached Fort Mardan. A hundred Sepoys together with the British officers of the 55th came out to meet them, and said that the rest of the regiment between 700 and 800 strong had deserted at dawn and that Colonel Spottiswode ‘had blown out his brains in disgust at their conduct’. ‘This sad news’, Vaughan recalled, ‘was confirmed by a letter found on the Colonel’s table addressed to me. In this letter Spottiswode reproached me as being the cause of the mutiny of his regiment and his consequent suicide ... The letter was painful reading ...’ Arrangements were quickly made for a pursuit, and Nicholson started hot-foot with a few Sowars of his personal escort, closely followed by Vaughan and his irregular infantrymen. A few stragglers were overtaken and killed (and 120 prisoners taken and returned to Peshawar to face the wrath of Sydney Cotton) but the greater part of the 55th escaped only to be savaged over the ensuing months by wild hillmen with whom they hoped to ally themselves.

At John Lawrence’s insistence, and to Vaughan’s disappointment, the 5th P.I. was detained in the Punjab and subsequently employed in suppressing several risings fomented by the colony Hundustani fanatics which had established itself some years earlier at Sittana. During the first of these operations, Vaughan had a close call: ‘Whilst my regiment was making its way through the intricate lanes of Narinjee, eight or nine men, easily recognizable as Hindoostanee fanatics from Sitana, appeared from behind from behind a wall, naked tulwar in hand, and advanced towards me in the attitude of attack as practised in the native gymnasia. I fired at the group with the Dean and Adams revolver I then carried, but for the life of me I could not discharge the second chamber! I probably forgot, in the excitement of the moment, that the pressure on the trigger had to be withdrawn after each shot in order to clear the action for the next. I thought all was over with me, but a section of Sikhs happily saw my danger, and promptly came to the rescue. Since then I have always carried in service a Colt revolver.’

Following the fall of Lucknow in early 1858, Vaughan arrived in Oudh with his regiment and was brigaded in the division commanded by Sir Hope Grant (Ritchie 1-110). ‘The rest of the year was spent in eternal marches and counter-marches through the length and breadth of Oude, varied by occasional indecisive encounters with an ever-vanishing enemy. There was just sufficient excitement to outweigh the discomforts of a hot weather campaign in India.’ During much of this period Vaughan was detached in independent commands, and it fell to him to track Nana Sahib, the beast of Cawnpore, to his last known resting place in Nepal beyond the Raptee. Vaughan’s Mutiny experiences brought him the thanks of the Government of India on two occasions, and more importantly helped establish the full value of the frontier regiments. In connection with the latter, Field Marshal Lord Wolseley wrote: ‘These Punjaub regiments consisted of fine fighting men, soldiers by instinct and by birth: Pathans, Paunjaubee Mussulmans, Sikhs and even Afridees from beyond our frontiers ... no men ever fought more gallantly than they did under the remarkable officers selected to lead them. Under men like Sir Dighton Probyn [qv], Sam Browne, Hodson, Wilde, Vaughan, and other famous leaders, they could be depended on to go anywhere and attempt anything.’

After a short furlough to England, Vaughan returned to Calcutta where he renewed a slight previous acquaintance with Colonel (later Field Marshal Sir) Henry Noman (see Lot 85). ‘He acquainted me with some of the ideas under which he had evolved the scheme of the Staff Corps; and it was with his approval that I wrote an article on the Staff Corps in the Calcutta Review. The object of the article was to popularize the idea of the Staff Corps by explaining how it would affect the future of those who joined it, as well as those who stood aloof from it ... It seemed to me then, and it does now, that to belong to a corps of officers created to provide a suitable man for every branch of the public service, from Governor-General to subaltern in a marching regiment, is something to be proud of. There is really no exaggeration in the above description of the elasticity of the Staff Corps, for the deviser of it - [Norman] himself an officer in it - was actually, we know, offered (and refused) the Viceroyalty of India!’

In spite of Sir Sydney Cotton’s successful campaign against the fanatics at Stitana in 1858, the group soon re-established itself amidst the Pathan tribes and their presence was once more detected in disturbances on the Yusafzai frontier. In the autumn of 1862 Vaughan spent some weeks with Chamberlain obtaining intelligence about them, and early the next year the Government sanctioned the formation of Chamberlain’s Yusafzai Field Force of 5,600 men which was to drive one group who had been raiding from their village at Malka out into the plains beyond the Chamla Valley. The force marched on 18 October 1863, intending to advance into the Chamla via the Umbeyla Pass, but great difficulty was experienced in getting the elephants and baggage through the defile, and after three days the whole expedition came to dead stop. The Bunerwals, who lived nearby but who were not originally involved, were afraid that the British had come to annex their territory in the valley, and in alarm they attacked the force, wrecking in one fell swoop the original plan. A direct advance on Malka up the Chamla with the Bunerwals flanking the seventeen mile line of march was now out of the question, and Chamberlain, with one man in ten sick, was forced to take up at defensive position near the pass as other tribes flocked to join the Bunerwals.

Vaughan served in command of his regiment throughout the campaign, firstly in charge of the left of the defences on Gurroo Mountain at the head of the pass. Withdrawn from that position, his regiment was engaged in fatigue duties at the upper camp on 20 November when Crag Picquet was overrun by enemy tribesmen:

‘What was happening at the Crag picket was seen by General Chamberlain at the main camp almost as soon by us. In the space of a few minutes the General’s orders reached me not to move, but to await the reinforcements he was bringing. In about a quarter of an hour he arrived, bringing the 71st Highlanders and the 5th Goorkah regiment. He directed Colonel Hope to lead his Highlanders straight up the rocky path which led to the captured picket, and told me to lead the 5th Goorkahs and my own regiment up the hill by a slight circuit, so as to take the enemy in the flank and rear. No time was lost. The advance of the Highlanders under the leading of Colonel Hope was very imposing, and attracted the admiration of all who witnessed it. With equal spirit, but in less compact order, owing to the nature of the ground, the Goorkahs and my own regiment breasted the ascent and performed the task assigned them. It was a steep pull to the crags which gave the picket its name, but not for a moment was the issue doubtful. The united columns followed the flying tribesmen for about half a mile, the men burning to avenge the distressing sight of the mutilated bodies of the gallant defenders, British and Native, of the captured picket.’

‘General Chamberlain himself accompanied and directed the advance of the troops to recover the Crag picket. He retained me at his side to receive any further instructions which might be necessary till the picket was retaken. When about two-thirds of the ascent had been accomplished, the General was unfortunately struck by a bullet in the forearm. He, however, continued to direct the advance, and it was only when the victory was won that he was persuaded to return to camp, and have his wound attended to. It need not be said how we all deplored the mishap which had befallen our Chief ... About the same time ... I was struck by a bullet fired from the direction of the water picket ... The sensation was as if someone had hit me a most violent blow across both thighs. The wound, though it bled freely, was happily superficial, and I was able to lead my men till the two attacking columns were re-united half a mile beyond the Crag picket.’

The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hugh Rose, was obliged to replace Chamberlain with General Gavrock, and in the meantime he sent two staff officers from Simla to take note of the situation. Vaughan recalled: ‘The two officers were, Colonel Adye, subsequently honourably known as General Sir John Adye, and Major, now Field Marshal Lord Roberts, our late Commander-in-Chief. I well remember the feeling, compounded partly of anger at what we thought implied a slight to our General, and partly of approving envy, with which we, in our soiled fighting dress, watched the trim uniforms and well polished boots of the Simla emissaries, as they were conducted over the position!’ On 15 December, Gavrock and his reinforcements moved out to attack the tribesmen blocking the route. Vaughan remained in command of the camp. ‘Simultaneously with the attack on our left’, Gavrock reported to Rose, ‘the camp was assailed by a large body of the enemy. But the force left to defend it under that very excellent officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan, well discharged its important duty’. Vaughan concluded: ‘The Umbeyla campaign won for me the much coveted distinction of a Companion of the Bath, and the award of a medal, with clasp in addition, for general service on the North-West frontier.’

At the close of the campaign Vaughan went to Noshwera where he was well received by Sir Hugh Rose, and thence to Peshawar. He rejoined the 5th P.I. at Kohat and as the senior officer found himself in command of a sizeable force of all arms. From this now quiet quarter, he took a characteristic view of events occurring elsewhere. In February 1866, he wrote to relatives in England, ‘We are all very sorry to see the latest accounts from America. How sadly the war has been turning against the Confederates’, and, later in November, he commented, ‘How grievious English politics are now ... We are sadly going down in the world’. In view of the fact that he would soon be obliged to leave the 5th on promotion to full Colonel, and that the command of Frontier Force had just been given to Colonel Wilde, Vaughan arranged to take his next annual leave at Simla in order to make himself known to Rose’s successor, Sir William Mansfield, and ‘the official dispensers of army patronage’. To this end his efforts were in some measure successful and in 1868 he was appointed to the command of a brigade consisting of H.M’s 1/6th Foot, the 2nd Gurkhas and the 3rd Sikh Infantry in the brief expedition of October 1868 to the Black Mountain. He returned briefly to his regiment but was shortly obliged to bid it a tearful farewell. Over a quarter of a century later, however, on the renumbering of the Indian Army in 1903, he had the honour of learning that the 5th Punjab Infantry, which he had commanded ‘for seventeen years in all the vicissitudes of frontier service’, was to be redesignated 58th Vaughan’s Rifles Frontier Force.

In January 1869 Vaughan was appointed to the command of the Gwalior district with the rank of Brigadier-General on the Army Staff. He was introduced to the then Maharajah Scindia at a formal interview by Major-General Crawford Chamberlain (qv). The formalities however belied a fact which surprised Vaughan - several 18-pounder guns were perpetually levelled at the Maharajah’s palace. This indignity, however, ceased shortly afterwards, and the British garrison which had occupied Scindia’s ancestral fortress since Mutiny days was also withdrawn. After only a year in this brigade command Vaughan was unexpectedly promoted Major-General due to readjustment to the dates of commission of senior officers. Consequently he had to give up his command at Gwalior, and could only find temporary employment in command of the Allahabad Division until the nominated officer arrived from England.

Bearing a definite grudge, Vaughan returned home short of money and was perforce ‘reduced to the idle dilettanti life of the London club’. For three or four years he submitted articles to the periodicals of the day, but without much success, whilst waiting for a recall to military duty. When none came he somewhat reluctantly accepted an offer of employment as the General Manager of the London and North Western Railway at Euston Station. After four years of ‘the eternal racket of railway life’, Vaughan was informed by his employers that his services were no longer required. He felt, however, the loss was entirely the L.N.W.R’s since they would no longer benefit from the services of ‘a general and a gentleman’.

The prospect of war with Afghanistan in 1878, however, offered new hope of military employment. Vaughan conceded that the claims of Sir Sam Browne and Sir Donald Stewart were worthier than his own to the commands of the two of three columns that would enter the country, but privately he thought himself at least as well qualified as Roberts for the command of the other. When his hopes were dashed, he offered his services to the Times and was duly appointed war correspondent. A press pass from the Times opened all the right doors on his arrival at Calcutta in early 1879 giving him ready access to the Viceroy, Lord Lytton, and his private secretary, Colonel Colley, who was destined to lose his life not long after under miserable circumstances in Natal. At Gandamak, Vaughan interviewd Sir Louis Cavagnari, the soon to be murdered envoy at Kabul, then awaiting the arrival of Yakub Khan to discuss treaty terms. As soon as the Treaty of Gandamak was signed, Vaughan was ordered by his employers to withdraw and was in the Middle East when he received news of the demise of the Kabul embassy. He immediately about turned to join Frederick Roberts.

On 21 October 1879, Lytton wired Roberts from Simla: ‘General Vaughan is about to proceed thither [Kabul] as correspondent for the Times. I will give him a letter to you; and I want you to be particularly civil to him. The Times, which reflects, I think, the present disposition of the Cabinet, has been strongly deprecating any further annexation beyond the limits of the districts assigned to us by the Gundamuk Treaty ... General Vaughan is ready to write up any policy, of which the cue is given to him by me, or by you on my behalf. His letters to the Times from Kabul may have a considerable effect upon public opinion at home, and through it, possibly, on the attitude of the Cabinet. I want you, therefore, to keep him in good humour and up to the mark.’

Roberts, an expert manipulator of the press, replied on 30 November: ‘General Vaughan has been talking to me about the future of Afghanistan: he seems to agree with my views and as he will probably write about them I should like to be favoured with Your Excellency’s instructions as to whether they are such as you would wish advocated in the London papers.’

It appears that Roberts was entirely successful in his dealings with Vaughan in accordance with Lytton’s wishes, for Vaughan recalled: ‘I do not remember that during my ten month’s stay at Kabul with Roberts’ army, or on the subsequent march to Kandahar, anything in the nature of a censorship of the Press existed. It might have been different had there been many correspondents of the London Press in camp, but ... the Times was the only London paper represented by a special correspondent. My intercourse with Roberts was of such a pleasant character that I was allowed by him, to my great satisfaction, as well as to the advantage of the Times, to put before him some of my more important letters and telegrams before despatch; and he often enabled me to make them more full and accurate.’

In the camp of the defeated Ayub Khan near Kandahar it was Vaughan’s duty to report the discovery of the body of Lieutenant Hector Maclaine (see Lot 96) who had been taken prisoner during the retreat from the battle of Maiwand. With the Afghan War at its end, Vaughan left for England, but on the way home he was redirected to cover the operations against the Boers in South Africa. These operations, however, were brought to an unsatisfactory conclusion before he arrived. In 1884 his various services were officially acknowledged when he was created a Knight Commander of the Bath. He ultimately attained the rank of full General and in 1905 was further advanced to a G.C.B. At the age eighty-two, Vaughan took a bride, Agnes, daughter of Canon Gilbert Beresford, and, finding it an enlightening experience, recanted his former condemnation of the married condition as ‘domestic insipidity’. The General retired to Tunbridge Wells and died on 2 January 1911.

Refs: Who Was Who; My Service in the Indian Army and After (Vaughan); Roberts in India The Military Papers of Field Marshal Lord Roberts, 1876-1893; The Life of Field Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain (Forrest).