Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Indian Volunteer Forces Officers’ Decoration, E.VII.R., silver and silver-gilt, hallmarks for Birmingham 1904, the reverse engraved ‘Surgn. Major C. J. Hancock Assam Valley Lt. Horse’, lacking integral top brooch bar, very fine £240-£280

John Tamplin Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, March 2009.

Charles James Sortain Hancock received his medical training at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and at the University of Durham. He became a M.R.C.S., Eng., 1875; L.R.C.P., Edin. and L.M. 1876; L.S.A., London, 1876; and a M.D. Dunelm, 1900. He went out to India in about 1880 and became the Medical Officer to several of the tea companies in operation there being appointed Honorary Surgeon of the Lakhimpur Mounted Rifles on 31 August 1883 - the unit later forming part of the Assam Light Horse. Advanced Surgeon Major in July 1895, he retired from the Volunteers in about 1902-03, and was awarded the Indian Volunteer Force Officers’ Decoration by the Gazette of India of 14 October 1905. Returning to England, he was latterly the Senior Medical Officer at the Leicester Infirmary, and later at the Fever Hospital. He died in Leytonstone, Essex, on 8 May 1923.