LIEUTENANT (LATER CAPTAIN) A.W.P. WEEKES, 78TH FOOT (SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS). India General Service Medal 1854-1895, 1 clasp, Persia
£1,150.00
LIEUTENANT (LATER CAPTAIN) A.W.P. WEEKES, 78TH FOOT (SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS). India General Service Medal 1854-1895, 1 clasp, Persia (officially impressed: LIEUT. W.P. WEEKES, 78th. HIGHLANDERS). Good Very Fine to Almost Extremely Fine.
Medal accompanied by biographical details and copied research re. Lieutenant Weekes and the Weekes family, who were at one time prominent plantation owners on the island of Nevis in the West Indies.
Alfred Wickham Pym Weekes, born 21/9/1830, in Wonton, Hampshire, was the son of Thomas Pym Weekes and Jane Wickham. He was commissioned Ensign, 78th Highlanders, 6/10/1848 (by purchase), promoted Lieutenant, 14/9/1852 (by purchase) and Captain, 10/9/1858. Captain Weekes retired, by sale of his commission, on 4/8/1863 and died at Winchester, Hampshire, on 23/7/1898.
Army lists of the period confirm that Weekes saw service during the campaign in Persia in 1857, including the night attack and battle of Kooshab and the bombardment of Humrah.
Weekes is recorded in Major H. Davidsons regimental history History and Services of the 78th Highlanders (W&AK Johnston, Edinburgh and London, 1901) as being among the officers and men of the regiment who took part in the homeward voyage from Bombay to Gravesend, the regiment embarking at Bombay, 18/5/1859 and arriving at Gravesend in mid-September 1859, after a brief stopover at St Helena to visit the tomb of Napoleon. On arrival at Gravesend only 59 men were still surviving from those who had gone out to India in 1842 and had arrived in India 1,023 strong.
Medal accompanied by an account of an attempt to murder Weekes while he was stationed at Aden during the 1850s. Whilst out riding one day, an arab man tricked him into stopping and then attacked him with a dagger. Despite having been stabbed, and bleeding profusely, Weekes managed to disarm his attacker and then cut his throat with his own dagger.
Alfred Weekes married Elizabeth McCulloch in Edinburgh on 20/6/1860. They had three children, two daughters, Emilie and Isabella, born in New Zealand in 1865 and 1867, and a son, Alfred, born in St Kilda, Victoria, Australia, in 1868.
Captain Weekes’s father, Thomas Pym Weekes, was born in December 1787 on the island of Nevis in the West Indies, and saw service with the East India Company (Bombay Presidency) as a Surgeon from 03/01/1822 and Supervising Surgeon from 03/01/1835. He died at Malta on 21/03/1841 whilst on passage to England.
Medal accompanied by copied notes re. the Weekes family and their connection with Nevis. Originally from Devonshire, the family’s surname first appeared in Nevis records in 1677 and that Captain Pym’s father, Thoms Pym Weekes, was a third-generation Creole on his father’s side.