Beschreibung:

The Scinde campaign medal for the battle of Meeanee awarded to Major William Wyllie, later General Sir, G.C.B., and Colonel of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Meeanee 1843 (Major William Wyllie) naming officially engraved in the correct style (as for medals to the 22nd Foot, fitted with replacement bar suspension and two ribbon buckles, severe damage to rim of medal which does not affect the naming, fine only, an extremely rare medal to an important officer £800-1000 Footnote Approximately 120 medals with the Meeanee reverse were issued to European recipients, of which 40 were to naval personnel. It is not known what caused the damage to Wyllie’s medal but it is clear that he obtained an official replacement which was issued many years later with scroll suspension and named in small impressed serif capitals. This replacement issue, together with an unnamed Ghuznee medal and G.C.B. insignia, was sold at Glendining’s in June 1988. William Wyllie was born at Kilmarnock on 13 August 1802, and entered the Bombay Army in 1818, becoming Lieutenant 11 Bombay N.I., May 1819; Captain 21 Bombay N.I., December 1833; Major, November 1841. He served in 1822 ad 1823 in the Deccan, Konkan, and Gujrat, in command of a detachment of 300 men sent against the rebel chief Rup Singh, who in 1822 gave trouble in the South Mahratta country. He served throughout the operations in Kach in 1825-26, and in May 1825 received the thanks of Sir Charles Colville, commander-in-chief, for his spirited conduct, when acting as adjutant of his regiment, in an attack on a large body of rebels strongly fortified on the heights of Jiran. In 1838 he was appointed brigade-major of the first brigade under Major-General Willshire of the Bombay column of the ‘army of the Indus’ for the invasion of Afghanistan, and was present at the assault and capture of Ghuznee and at the occupation of Kabul in July and August 1839. Appointed Assistant Adjutant-General under Willshire, Wyllie accompanied the storming party at the successful assault and capture of Kelat in November 1839. After the capture he found in the citadel the dead body of Mahrab Khan, and had it conveyed to the tent of Willshire, who was unaware that the Kelat chief had fallen. Wyllie was mentioned in despatches and received brevet promotion to Major. As Assistant Adjutant-General of the forces in the Scinde and Baluchistan, he took part in the operations under Sir Charles Napier and was dangerously wounded at the battle of Meeanee on 17 February 1843. Napier reported in his despatch of the following day that Wyllie was wounded when leading up the bank ‘gloriously animating the men to sustain the shock of numbers’, and that no man had been more serviceable to him in all the operations. Wyllie was appointed a C.B. in July 1843. He commanded the troops employed on the coast during the rebellion in the South Mahratta country in 1844-45, receiving the government’s approval of his measures, and especially of the capture of rebels in the village of Kandauli on 28 March 1845. In 1849 he was appointed Deputy Adjutant-General of the Bombay army, and the following year was made Brigadier-General and given command of the Bombay garrison. Wyllie left India in 1858, was promoted to General in 1871, and appointed Colonel of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in February 1873. He was advanced to a knight commander of the order of the Bath in 1865, and to the grand cross of the order in June 1877, and retired from the service in October of the same year. General Sir William Wyllie died in London on 20 May 1891.