THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR, SECOND ANGLO-BURMA WAR AND INDIAN MUTINY CAMPAIGN GROUP TO PRIVATE (LATER COLOUR SERGEANT) JOSEPH PICK, 13TH (1ST SOMERSETSHIRE, PRINCE ALBERT’S LIGHT INFANTRY) REGIMENT (THE POST 1880 PRINCE ALBERT’S SOMERSETSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY),

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR, SECOND ANGLO-BURMA WAR AND INDIAN MUTINY CAMPAIGN GROUP TO PRIVATE (LATER COLOUR SERGEANT) JOSEPH PICK, 13TH (1ST SOMERSETSHIRE, PRINCE ALBERT’S LIGHT INFANTRY) REGIMENT (THE POST 1880 PRINCE ALBERT’S SOMERSETSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY), WHO AFTER DESERTING FROM THE 13TH FOOT CIRCA 1846, RE-ENLISTED, IN 1849, INTO THE 1ST BENGAL EUROPEAN FUSILIERS (THE POST 1860 1ST BATTALION ROYAL MUNSTER FUSILIERS), NO DOUBT RE-ENLISTING INTO THE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S ARMY IN 1849 RATHER THAN THE BRITISH ARMY IN ORDER TO AVOID BEING COURT-MARTIALED FOR DESERTION FROM THE BRITISH ARMY IN 1846. AFTER SEEING SERVICE WITH THE 1ST BENGAL EUROPEAN FUSILIERS, PICK SUBSEQUENTLY SAW SERVICE WITH THE 4TH (KINGS OWN ROYAL) REGIMENT (THE POST 1880 ROYAL LANCASTER REGIMENT) AND THE 107TH (BENGAL INFANTRY) REGIMENT (THE POST 1880 2ND BATTALION THE ROYAL SUSSEX REGIMENT), AND WAS EVENTUALLY DISCHARGED IN 1870 AFTER SEEING OVER 28 YEARS SERVICE WITH THE COLOURS, DURING A PERIOD SPANNING OVER 30 YEARS, 1839-1870, MOST OF THOSE YEARS BEING SPENT IN INDIA. Four: Defence of Jellalabad Medal, 1842, 2nd type, flying Victory reverse (officially named, engraved in running script: Private Joseph Pick, H.M. 13th .. .. ) Candahar, Ghuznee and Cabul Medal 1841-42, Cabul 1842 reverse, steel clip and straight bar suspender (unnamed, as issued, a later replacement for a lost original medal), India General Service Medal 1848-95, 1 clasp, Pegu (officially named, impressed in serifed capital letters: JOSh. PICK. 1st. EUR. BENGAL FUSrs) Indian Mutiny Medal, 2 clasps, Lucknow, Delhi (officially named, impressed in serifed capital letters: JOSEPH PICK. 1ST. EURn. BENGAL FUSrs). Jellalabad Medal with contemporary replacement India General Service Medal style silver scroll suspension, the first and third medals with slack suspensions, contact marks and edge bruising with resultant loss of some naming detail to the Jellalabad Medal (as indicated, the abbreviation “REGT” on the edge of that medal being indistinct as a result of contact marks with other medals), the first two medals Fine, the IGS Medal Almost Very Fine and the Mutiny Medal Good Very Fine, and a rare combination of medals, the “Flying Victory” variety of the Jellalabad Medal being scarce to the 13th Foot, with only approximately 50 awarded.

At one time this group was lacking its Cabul 1842 Medal. This has now been replaced with a medal whose condition matches that of the other medal awarded to Pick at roughly the same time, the Jellalabad Medal, to complete Pick’s confirmed medal entitlement.

Group accompanied by birth and baptism details, extract 13th Foot muster roll for the periods April-June 1839, extract 1841 British Army Worldwide Index, and a further selection 13th Foot muster rolls for the period October 1844 to December 1846, and 4 pages copied service papers from Pick’s second period of enlistment into the 1st Bengal European Fusiliers and subsequent service with the 4th Foot and 107th Foot.

There was a 2206 Private John Pick of the 13th Foot who, like Joseph Pick was born in Huddersfield (born Huddersifeld 1822), who saw service with that regiment at the same time as Joseph Pick, enlisting 13/12/1840, and who saw service exclusively with the regiment, including in the Crimea, and being discharged 1856. This John Pick no doubt a brother of Joseph Pick, John Pick’s papers also accompany this group.

Joseph Pick was born in the parish of St Peter, Huddersfield, Yorkshire on 8/12/1820 (baptised 14/5/1821), the son of Martha and William Snowden Pick. He enlisted into the 13th Foot at Leeds on 13/6/1839. At the time of enlistment Pick was 18 years of age and saw service initially as 1042 Private with the 13th Foot, the April-June 1839 muster roll recording Pick as a Private serving with the 13th Foot at Chatham. He arrived in India in October 1939, just five months after enlisting, but too late to take part in the capture of Ghuznee, 27/7/1839. He is recorded in he 1841 British Army Worldwide Index as a Private serving with the 13th Foot at Cabul, Afghanistan, and the October-December 1844 muster roll records Pick as having been promoted from Corporal to Sergeant whilst serving at Colaba, Bombay. The 13th Foot returned to the UK in 1845, the headquarters of the regiment being the first officers and men of the regiment to return, embarking at Colaba on 20/3/1845 for England, the regiment as a whole disembarking in England at Gravesend in July and August 1845. The October-December 1846 13th Foot muster roll, taken at Portsmouth, records Joseph Pick’s brother John as having deserted on 5/12/1846 and Joseph Pick being granted furlough in Huddersfield, his home town, four days later on 9/12/1846. Joseph Pick disappears from the muster rolls of the 13th Foot after December 1846, no doubt because he followed in his brother’s footsteps and also deserted.

By the time Pick returned to Britain in 1846 and deserted from the 13th Foot economic conditions in the country had taken a turn for the worse, the economic difficulties of the late 1840s being exacerbated by the influx of large numbers of unemployed Irish labourers following the outbreak of the famine in Ireland in those years, leading to depressed wages and widespread unemployment. With many of the Irish immigrants seeking work in the mills of Yorkshire, conditions were particularly in Huddersifeld, where Pick was born, and in Leeds, where he had originally enlisted in 1839, prompting Pick to re-enlist and return to India, Pick enlisting into the 1st Bengal European Fusiliers as a Private at Liverpool on 22/10/1849 (re-enlisting into the East India Company’s army rather than the British army in order to avoid being court martialed for desertion). At the time of his second enlistment Pick was 29 years and 9 months old and gave his trade as shoemaker. Pick first saw service with the 1st Bengal Fusiliers during the Pegu campaign, 28/3/1852 to 13/6/1853 (awarded India General Service Medal with Pegu clasp). He was promoted Corporal, 14/11/1855, but was court martialled and reduced to Private on 5/11/1856, and subsequently seeing service with the 1st Bengal Fusiliers during the Indian Mutiny, 1857-58 (awarded Indian Mutiny Medal with Lucknow and Delhi Clasps). Pick transferred to the 4th (Kings Own Royal) Regiment (the post 1880 Royal Lancaster Regiment) on 28/7/1858, once again being promoted Corporal, 3/11/1858, and Sergeant, 7/3/1861. Pick next transferred, with the rank of Drill Sergeant, to a “local company of infantry” (presumably a European or native infantry militia unit in India) on 18/11/1861, before transferring, with the rank of Sergeant, to the 107th (Bengal Infantry) Regiment (the post 1880 2nd Battalion The Royal Sussex Regiment) on 31/1/1862 and was promoted Colour Sergeant, 5/9/1862. On 24/1/1863, however, Pick was tried on a charge of drunkenness, found guilty and reduced from Colour Sergeant to Private. Once again promoted Corporal, 3/10/1866, Pick was finally discharged for a second time on 31/5/1870, after seeing service with the colours during his second period of engagement for 19 years and 3 months, and after having seen over 28 years service with the colours in total during a period spanning over 30 years, 1839-1870, the majority of those years spent in India. Service papers confirm entitlement to medals for Cabul, Jellalabad, Pegu and the Indian Mutiny with 2 clasps, Lucknow and Delhi, but no Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, presumably due to Pick’s various convictions and resultant reductions in rank. Nevertheless, discharge papers state that whilst serving Pick’s character and conduct had been “good”. At the time of discharge Pick gave his intended place of residence as Huddersfield.

Pick first saw active service in Afghanistan during the First Afghan War (1839-1842), during what was to be the first of a series of ill-judged interventions in Afghanistan: defeats, retreats and subsequent disastrous withdrawals, that have continued to the present day: the First Afghan War, 1839-42, Second Afghan War, 1878-80, Third Afghan War, 1919 and Operations Herrick and Toral, 2001-2014 and 2014-2021 respectively, the latter operations known more colourfully to American participants as Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-2014 and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, 2014-2021.

In 1841 the 13th Foot formed part of the British garrison in the Afghan capital, having arrived at Cabul on 6/12/1839 as part of the Anglo-Afghan force that restored the deposed ruler of Afghanistan, Shah Shoojah, to his throne, Shah Shoojah entering his capital on 7/12/1840 and resuming his reign after thirty years in exile. The 13th Foot arrived at Cabul at the end of a 1,500 mile long march that had begun at Ferozepore in India on 10/12/1838, during which the battalion took part in numerous actions, including the capture of Ghuznee, 27/7/1839. Pick, who arrived in India in October 1839, would have formed part of one of the drafts to replace casualties sustained during the advance on Cabul, the regiment having lost some 113 officers and men on the march from Ferozepore . At Cabul Pick and the other officers and men of the 13th Foot, along with the 25th Native Infantry and three guns of the 6th Light Field Battery, initially saw service in the Bala Hissar, the citadel of Cabul, forming the Citadel’s garrison. After deployment in the Citadel, the 13th Foot were employed for nine months in the defence of the Citadel and operations around Cabul, prior to the 13th Foot transferring to Jellalabad in September 1841 and taking part in the siege and defence of the fortress of Jellalabad, 12/11/1841 to 7/4/1842 (awarded Jellalabad Medal 1841-42). The fact that the 13th Foot was posted for service in Jellalabad on 12/11/1841 meant that the regiment, apart from a few officers and men, escaped the massacre of the British army, 4,500 troops and 12,000 camp followers, as it retreated from Cabul in December 1841 and January 1842. Pick was in Jellalabad on the afternoon of 13/1/1842 to witness the final episode of that disastrous defeat, when the sole survivor of the massacre, Dr. Brydon, finally rode in to Jellalabad. Pick would also have witnessed at first hand the return of patrols sent out in a fruitless search for other survivors.

Pick subsequently took part in the advance to and recapture of Cabul, September 1842 (awarded Candahar, Ghuznee and Cabul Medal, Cabul 1842 reverse), after which Pick took part in the march back to India, the 13th Foot arriving at Ferozepore on 17/12/1842, after having seen four years continuous service in Afghanistan, the officers and the men of the regiment having been presented with their Jellalabad Medals a few days earlier, on 14th December, in order that they might wear them on their triumphal re-entry into Ferozepore.

There are two varieties of the Jellalabad Medal, the original version with “Mural Crown” obverse and the second “Flying Victory” type. The first version of the medal met with an unfavourable response, those objecting to its design including both Lord Ellenborough, the Governor-General of India, who had sanctioned the issuing of a medal for the Defence of Jellalabad, and Queen Victoria, who objected to the fact that the medal lacked her portrait and titles on the obverse. As a result, the authorities produced the second “Flying Victory” version of the medal and gave the officers and men who had already received the first type the option of exchanging it for the new design. In the event, the replacement design also proved unpopular with the recipients who had already received their medals and the majority opted to retain their first medal, with the result that the second “Flying Victory” version is by far the rarer of the two types. The Regimental History of the 13th Foot notes that of the 16 officers and 174 men who received the original medal, only two officers and less than 50 men opted to exchange for the new medal.

For a detailed statistical analysis of the scale and effects of the arrival of Irish immigrants on labour and employment conditions in Leeds and the wider Yorkshire area from the 1830s onwards, including the time of Pick’s second enlistment in 1849, see “The Irish in Leeds” by Terence Dillon, in Publications of the Thorsby Society. (Miscellany, Volume 16, part 1, Leeds, 1974).

For a similar group awarded to a Private of the 13th Foot, comprising Ghuznee Medal 1839, Jellalabad Medal 1842 and Cabul Medal 1842, see Noonan’s 25-26 June 2014 (lot 1274). That lot realised £3,300 (£4,125 approx. including fees).