A fine Abyssinia 1867 Medal awarded to Apothecary and Honorary Surgeon in the East Indies W. Conway, Bombay Subordinate Medical Establishment, formerly Army Medical Department, who was dangerously wounded by a musket ball through the head at the Siege and Attack at Rathghur on January 1858 whilst serving with the 1st Troop Horse Artillery

He was fortunate to survive the brief but bloody encounter - two rebel head men were hanged from the fortress gateway whilst a number of mangled bodies lay at the base of a cliff-face, having failed in their desperation to navigate a perilous footpath in the dead of night



Abyssinia 1867 (Actg. Apotcy. W. Conway Army Medcl. Dept.) attractively brooch mounted, polished to high relief, otherwise nearly very fine and rare to rank £200-£240

William Conway was born around 1832 and educated at Grant Medical College in Bombay from 1849. Noted as Student Apprentice 1st Grade in College records, he qualified Assistant Apothecary in the Annual Report of 1852-53 and is stated in The Bombay Gazette of 5 January 1852 as Assistant Apothecary assigned to general duties at Scinde, attached to the 2nd Battalion of Artillery.

Transferred to temporary duties with the 78th Highlanders, Conway subsequently served under the command of Assistant Surgeon Leitch, tasked with safely transporting troops per Earl of Beleares to Poona. Sent to Her Majesty’s 14th Regiment (The King’s) Light Dragoons at Jhow in 1855, he returned to Bombay and was attached on temporary assignment to the Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy hospital. Relocating with a young wife and family from Poona to Ahmedabad and onwards to the Esplanade, Bombay, Conway evaded the disease so commonly associated with this period, but soon found his life in peril whilst serving as part of the 2nd Brigade, Nerbudda Field Force, during the Indian Mutiny.

The Siege and Attack of Rathghur, January 1858

Garrisoned by mutineer rebels, the rock and earthen fort at Rathghur was said to be as large and strong as that of Mooltan. The east and south facing rock faces were almost perpendicular, the rock being scarped and strengthened by the deep rapid river Biena. With the fort towering to the heavens and the enemy observing every move made on the plain below, author Thomas Lowe in his work Central India during the Rebellion of 1857 and 1858 made clear the task ahead of Conway and his contemporaries: ‘... approach from the east and south was next to impossible, approach from the west or town side almost as difficult.’

First engagements took place on 24-25 January with men of the 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry and sowars of the Hyderabad Contingent surrounding the fort and cutting off the Saugon road to enemy relief. On 26 January the 3rd Europeans - bolstered by the 18-pounders, howitzers, mortars, and 6-pounders of the Hyderabad Contingent - began their single file attack up a steep footpath. Contemporary accounts describe the chaos of the first attack:

‘We found ourselves in the midst of fire. The jungle-grass before, behind and on both sides of us was ablaze. What with the heat of the sun and the fire, we were pretty nearly roasted.’

Responding to cries for medical aid, Conway moved to the front of the attack and was struck by a musket ball. Listed as dangerously wounded with a ‘ball through head’ in the London Gazette of 20 April 1858, he was removed to hospital and remarkably recovered from his injury; the mutineers proved less fortunate, with large numbers losing their lives in a desperate night-time descent of the mountain prior to the fall of the fortress on 30 January 1858. Those who did make it to the plain below were heavily ‘cut up’ in the days that followed according to Lowe.

Continuing in the service of the Army Medical Department, Conway set sail from Bombay in 1867 as part of the rescue and punitive expedition against Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia. Under the command of Sir Robert Napier, the expedition was widely acclaimed for achieving all of its objectives, notably the capture of the Emperor and a similar mountain fortress at Magdala. Returned home to Bombay, Conway served with the Bombay Medical Department until retirement in 1878. According to the Naval and Military Gazette of 17 July 1878, he left the service with the Honorary and local rank of Surgeon in the East Indies, the Bombay Burial Register of June 1900 later confirming his death in consequence of heart failure.