A fine Indian campaign group of three awarded to Lieutenant-General Edwin Venour, Commandant of the 5th Bengal Native Infantry, late 3rd Goorkhas, who was severely wounded in July 1857 when attached as a volunteer to the 10th Foot during a costly attempt to relieve Arrah: he was afterwards mentioned in despatches for his leadership of Goorkha skirmishers in the Bhootan operations and commanded the 5th Bengal Native Infantry in the Second Afghan War

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Ensign, Attached to 1st Bn. 10th Foot), officially engraved naming in running script; India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Bhootan (Lieut., 3rd Goorkha Regt.), initial and ‘3’ inverted; Afghanistan 1878-80, no clasp (Lt. Col., 5th Ben. N.I.), the first two with contact marks and edge bruising, very fine or better, the last good very fine (3) £1400-1600

Edwin Venour was born at sea aboard the Repulse in January 1837, the son of a Doctor of the Bengal Medical Service. Privately educated at Bromsgrove and at Queen’s College, Oxford, he successfully applied for a Cadetship in the H.E.I.C. in February 1857 and was appointed an Ensign in the 40th Bengal Native Infantry on his arrival at Calcutta that April.

As a result of the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, however, he was quickly attached to the 10th Foot as a volunteer, with whom he participated in a costly endeavour to relieve Arrah in July 1857. The force in question, which included a party of men of the 10th Foot under Captain Dunbar, was disembarked from two steamers at Bihari Ghat, several miles from Arrah, on the 29th. On reaching the outskirts of the town, the force - largely conspicuous for its white drill uniforms - moved along an embanked road and thence to a gathering of mangrove trees, where, without warning, it was hotly engaged by the mutineers from just 30 yards range. Captain Dunbar was among the first of many to be cut down, and others lost their rifles in their attempt to flee the devastating fire by jumping down the embankments of the road. At length, the surviving officers - Ensign Venour among them - managed to regain order and form a square in a field some 400 yards away. There they remained under fire until dawn, when an attempt was made to get back to the steamers, but their subsequent journey was a nightmare, the mutineers keeping up a constant fire from behind assorted rocks and trees, so much so that discipline collapsed when the Bihari Ghat was finally reached, the majority making a disorderly dash for the steamers’ boats. It was at this juncture that Venour was severely wounded, a moment described by a fellow volunteer officer from the 40th Bengal Native Infantry, Lieutenant H. Waller, in his official report of the action:

‘Upon getting down to the nullah, Ensign Venour and I got into a boat with some of the men, and, while I was shoving the boat out, we tried with a rifle to shoot some of the fellows who were making a mark on me. He knocked over one, but, unfortunately, got shot himself immediately after through the thigh, and dropped. I tied up his leg as well as I could, and, getting some more help, I succeeded in getting the boat off; but the fire was so hot, as they saw a chance of our getting away from them, that I and four other men left the boat and swam ashore, being fired at the whole way across. Ensign Venour also left the boat a short time afterwards, and, although wounded, managed to swim ashore; the fire from the village the whole time was most severe, killing and wounding a great number ...’

Two V.Cs were awarded for this action, both of them, unusually, to civilians, Messrs. W. F. McDonnell and R. L. Mangles of the Bengal Civil Service. For his own part, Venour was sent home on sick leave for 18 months, and advanced to Lieutenant.

Not long after his return to India, in July 1861, he was appointed to the 3rd Goorkha Regiment, of which unit he became Officiating Adjutant in October 1864. Venour subsequently participated in the Bhootan operations of 1866, serving with his regiment in the right column of the Doar Field Force, and was present at the capture of the Buxar, the Bala Pass and the Tazagaon stockades. For his ‘good work when in charge of the skirmishers in the affair at the Bala Pass on 4 February 1866’, he was mentioned in despatches and thanked by the C.-in-C.

Advanced to Captain in February 1868, Venour went home on sick leave later that year, and was posted to the 5th Bengal Native Infantry soon after his return to India in November 1871.

Gaining advancement to Major in April 1873, he became a Wing Officer and 2nd-in-Command of the regiment in September of the following year, and was a Lieutenant-Colonel by the time he led it in the Second Afghan War 1878-80. During that conflict the regiment was initially attached to Brigadier-General Tytler’s 2nd Brigade, Kuram Field Force, at Thal, but in March 1880 crossed the frontier and moved up to Balesh Khel. According to Shadbolt, ‘for the next six months the 5th Bengal Native Infantry, broken up into detachments, continued to serve at various posts in the Kuram Valley, and on the frontier, 50 men of the regiment forming part of the garrison of Chapri when that post was attacked by a large body of Waziris on 1 May 1880.’

Venour was given the Brevet of Colonel in April 1880 and became Commandant of the 5th Bengal Native Infantry on his advancement to substantive Colonel in April 1887.

He saw no further active service, was promoted to Major-General in September 1889 and to Lieutenant-General in January 1893, but died of influenza at Almorah, India in February of the following year. Sadly, too, his son, Lieutenant-Colonel W. E. Venour, was killed in action at Givenchy in October 1914, while serving in Vaughan’s Rifles. Sold with copied research.