Orders, Decorations and Medals Including five Special Collections

India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Pegu (Lieutt. Wm. Tate Groom, 1st Madras Fusrs.) minor edge bruise and a few surface marks, otherwise nearly extremely fine £400-450

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Gordon Everson.

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William Tate Groom was born in London on 20 August 1831, son of Richard Groom, Solicitor to the India Board. He attended Rugby School from August 1845 until 1850, and was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Madras Fusiliers on 20 August 1850. He served at the relief of Pegu on 14 December 1852, and at the second investment of the Burmese in January 1853 (Medal with Clasp).

Promoted to Lieutenant on 4 March 1854, Groom subsequently took part in the Indian Mutiny and was present at the relief of Lucknow. Colonel R. Napier mentions Groom in his report dated 5th October, 1857, on the capture of an enemy battery in Phillip’s Garden, on the Cawnpore Road in Lucknow: ‘In the afternoon of the 1st, the column formed in the road leading to the Paen Bagh, and advanced through the buildings near the gaol, occupied the mass of houses on the left and front of Phillip’s Garden, under guidance of Mr Phillips the former occupant, and the enemy were driven from some houses and a barricade on the left of our advance, by fifty men of the Madras Fusiliers, led by Lieutenant Groom under a sharp fire of musketry, in a very spirited manner.’

Groom was dangerously wounded in the right thigh at Lucknow on 5 October, and died of his wounds on 21 October 1857. His letters written during the Indian Mutiny were published in 1894 under the title With Havelock from Allahabad to Lucknow.