Long Service Medals from the Collection formed by John Tamplin

Four: Sergeant-Major Patrick McClory, 1st Madras Fusiliers and 102nd Foot

India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Pegu (P. McClory, 1st Madras Fusrs.); Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Serjt. P. McClory, 1st Madras Fusrs.); Honourable East India Company L.S. & G.C., 1st issue, H.E.I.C. Arms (Serjeant Major P. McClory, 40th Regiment N.I.); Meritorious Service Medal, E.VII.R. (Serjt. Mjr. P. McClory, 102nd Foot) edge bruising and contact marks, otherwise nearly very fine, the last nearly extremely fine (4) £1000-1200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Long Service Medals from the Collection formed by John Tamplin.

View
Collection

L.S. & G.C. medal notified in Madras Presidency Orders of 15 June 1868.

M.S.M. notified in Army Order 5 of January 1905.

Patrick McClory was born in the Parish of Anaclone, near Banbridge, County Down, in about 1827. He attested for the East India Company’s Army on 25 November 1847, and was posted to the 1st Madras European Fusiliers, with whom he served in India for over 20 years. He served in the second Burmese war of March 1852 to June 1853, was promoted Sergeant in August 1855, and later served in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny. Following the Mutiny and the transfer of the H.E.I.C. Forces to the Crown, McClory elected to serve in H.M. Local Indian Forces and was appointed to the 40th Madras Native Infantry, becoming Acting Sergeant-Major in March 1861. He was awarded the L.S. & G.C. medal in June 1868 and granted a Gratuity equivalent to £5 payable on discharge, which took place on 13 April 1869 with 23 years 140 days service. As an old soldier, Sergeant-Major Patrick McClory was awarded the M.S.M. in 1905, the medal being named to the 102nd Foot to which the 1st Madras European Fusiliers had been re-titled in 1868. There is reason to believe that he died soon afterwards as his name does not appear in Army Estimates as a recipient of the M.S.M. Annuity after 1906.

Some of McClory’s services during the second Burmese war are told by Captain S. H. Jones-Parry in An Old Soldier’s Memories, published in 1897, and also, based on the same work, by Colonel H. C. Wylly, C.B. in Neill’s “Blue Caps”:

P54 - ‘Whilst approaching the pagoda, it seems that Privates McClory and Kelly found an old iron gun which the Burmese had been unable to take with them, and to this gun our men clung with a laudable pertinacity. Of the importance of this capture I shall speak again.’

P67 - ‘On reaching the ghaut I [Jones-Parry] found that Nicolay had emptied the boat and sent off the stores to the pagoda. As I passed I noted one bullock-cart alone left behind; it contained salt, and I got a Quixotic idea into my head that in a siege salt was indispensable, so I attempted to get the bullocks to move off. To my disgust I discovered the linch-pin was gone. Whilst stooping down to try and find it, I was suddenly whipped up round the waist and carried off just as an Irishman does a small pig. When I recovered myself on being sat down, I found that Private McClory of my company, seeing I was on the point of being surrounded , rushed forward and rescued me in this somewhat undignified manner. He most tryly saved my life, and subsequently got promoted.’

P71 - ‘But to return to our guns. A party of our No. 10 men were told off or volunteered for artillery practise. Our gun was the one captured by McClory and Kelly, a bulldog-looking thing with a touch-hole as large as a church-door.’