Lot Archive

Lot

№ 768

.

11 December 2002

Hammer Price:
£110

Belgium, Conférence Internationale de l’Institut Colonial, Brussels, 1907, a bronze award medal by T. Szirmaï, bust of Leopold II left, Fame blowing trumpet below, rev. wreath, named (Sir Alfred Lyall, KCB, GCIE), 50mm (BDM V, 724). Good very fine (£30-50)

Rt Hon Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall, GCIE, KCB, PC (1835-1911); b. Coulsdon, Surrey; King’s Scholar at Eton, 1847-52; Haileybury 1853-5; nominated for the Indian Civil Service in 1856 by his uncle, Sir George Lyall, MP, chairman of the East India Company; served in the Voluntary Cavalry at Meerut in the Indian Mutiny, 1857, and had his horse shot from under him (medal); accompanied Sir George Campbell into Delhi after the city fell; commissioner at Nagpore, 1865; Home Secretary to the government of India, 1873; Governor-General’s agent in Rajputana, 1874; Indian Foreign Secretary 1878-81; Lieutenant-Governor of the North Western Provinces and Oudh, 1882-7; returned to England 1887 and served on the India Council in London until 1902; governor of Dulwich College, 1891-1911 [Lyall Avenue, Dulwich, is named after him]; appointed trustee of British Museum February 1911. Sold with further extensive biographical detail, an extract from Life of the Right Hon. Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall by Sir Mortimer Durand, and a copy of Lyall’s book Warren Hastings