The Collection of Medals Formed by Bill and Angela Strong

The Indian Mutiny medal to Private Thomas Mallinson, 84th Regiment, massacred at Cawnpore

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Thos. Mallinson, 84th Regt.) the obverse with brooch marks, obviously once worn as a ‘widow’s brooch’, edge bruising, otherwise about very fine and very rare £1400-1600

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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Ex Brian Ritchie Collection, September 2004.

Thomas Mallinson, a Labourer, was born at Huddersfield and enlisted into H.M’s 84th Regiment on 27 January 1855. He was one of the hundred or so members of the Regiment’s ‘E’ and ‘G’ Companies despatched up country from Dum Dum between 19 and 24 May 1857 to Benares, whence he was sent with some fifty men under Lieutenant Frederick Saunders, to Cawnpore to bolster the defence of General Wheeler’s entrenchment.

Having served through the siege, Mallinson died in the massacre at Satichura Ghat on 27 June 1857.

Although the casualty roll records Lieutenant Saunders and 47 other ranks from the 84th as having been massacred at Cawnpore, some of these names do not appear on the medal roll, and with so few having ever appeared for sale, it is possible that for the most part they were never issued. This would seem to apply equally to the medals of the 32nd who were massacred at Cawnpore, and to others, like so many of the 35th Foot who were killed in the disaster at Jugdispore.