THE INDIA GENERAL SERVICE MEDAL 1849-95 WITH NORTH-WEST FRONTIER CLASP AWARDED TO LIEUTENANT (LATER CAPTAIN) R.H. GRANT, ROYAL ARTILLERY, WHO SAW SERVICE ON THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER DURING THE BLACK MOUNTAIN EXPEDITION OF 1868, WHO WAS SUBSEQUENTLY A.D.C.

THE INDIA GENERAL SERVICE MEDAL 1849-95 WITH NORTH-WEST FRONTIER CLASP AWARDED TO LIEUTENANT (LATER CAPTAIN) R.H. GRANT, ROYAL ARTILLERY, WHO SAW SERVICE ON THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER DURING THE BLACK MOUNTAIN EXPEDITION OF 1868, SUBSEQUENTLY SERVED ON THE STAFF OF THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA AND WAS A.D.C. TO THE PRINCE OF WALES (LATER KING EDWARD VII) HIS VISIT TO INDIA IN 1875 (ALSO ENTITLED TO THE RARE VISIT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES TO INDIA MEDAL 1875 IN SILVER).

LIEUTENANT GRANT WAS THE UNCLE OF LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOHN PATRICK GRANT, D.S.O., SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS, WHO WAS DEPICTED AS THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN LADY ELIZABETH BUTLER’S FAMOUS PAINTING “STAND FAST CRAIGELACHIE”, WHICH IS NOW HOUSED IN THE SCOTTISH MILITARY MUSEUM, EDINBURGH.

India General Service Medal 1849-95, 1 clasp, North West Frontier (officially named, impressed in serifed upper and lower case letters and numbers: LIEUt. R H GRANT. No. 2 By. 24th. BDe. R, A.).

Attractively toned, Extremely Fine and virtually as struck, with a length of original silk ribbon.

Medal accompanied by copied extracts India General Service Medal 1849-95 medal roll (original and published), which confirm medal and North-West Frontier clasp and that the then Lieutenant Grant saw service with no. 2 Battery, 24th Brigade Royal Artillery (71 medals and clasps to no. 2 Battery).

No. 2 Battery saw service on the North West Frontier 3 – 22 October 1868 during the expedition under Major General A.T. Wilde, C.B., C.S.I., against the Bazoti Black Mountain tribes.

Medal also accompanied by copied extracts from “List of Officers of the Royal Regiment of Artillery”, Hart’s Army List and Burke’s Landed Gentry.

Born 16/12/1840, Robert Henry Grant (1840-1878) was the son of John Grant of Kilgraston and Pitkeathly, Perthshire, and the nephew of both Lieutenant-General Sir James Hope Grant, G.C.B., who commanded the Cavalry Division at Delhi and a Division at Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny, and was commander of the British forces in the China campaign of 1860 (and whose orders, decorations and medals were sold at Dix Noonan Webb on 17/9/2004, lot 110), and the artist Sir Francis Grant, a President of the Royal Academy.

Grant was appointed Gentleman Cadet 8/4/1856, commissioned Lieutenant 1/4/1859 and promoted 2nd Captain 23/12/1871 and Captain 5/7/1872. Captain Grant retired on a gratuity 10/4/1878 and died six days later at Cannes, France, on 16/4/1878.

Captain Grant served for several years on the Staff of the Governor General of India and was ADC to the future King Edward VII during the Royal Visit to India in 1875 (awarded Royal Visit Medal in silver). He is recorded in the 1877 Hart’s Army List as Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General Allahabad Division, India.

A portrait of Captain Robert Henry Grant by his uncle, Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., was sold by Sothebys in March 2007.

The Grant family of Kilgraston had close ties spanning several generations to the Brooke family, the “White Rajahs” who ruled the colony of Sarawak 1841-1946, the families being linked by multiple inter-marriages and many members of the Grant family also seeing service in the Sarawak royal court.

Robert Henry Grant was the brother of Charles Thomas Constantine Grant of Kilgraston, who saw service as Aide de Camp to James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarwak, and of Francis Augustus Grant, brother in law of John Brooke Johnson-Brooke (1823-1868), one-time Crown Prince of Sarawak, elder brother of Charles Brooke, the second white Rajah of Sarawak. John Brooke Johnson-Brooke, who married Francis Augustus Grant’s sister, Anne, in 1855, was then the heir-apparent to the throne of Sarawak. A dispute with his uncle, Sir James Brooke (1803-1868), the first white Rajah of Sarawak, regarding the ability of Sarawak to maintain its independence unsupported, led to Sir James Brooke disinheriting his nephew and banishing him from Sarawak.

The Grants of Kilgraston and the Brookes, Rajahs of Sarawak, had established close ties some time prior to the marriage of Anne Grant and John Brooke Johnson-Brooke in 1855. Sir James Brooke, who went on to become the first white Rajah, saw service during the First Burmese War, 1824-1826, with the East India Company’s 18th Bengal Native Infantry. Severely wounded, he resigned his commission and subsequently established himself as a merchant adventurer at Singapore, which had been a British colonial naval base and commercial centre since 1819. Brooke went on to play a leading role in establishing friendly links between Singapore and Sarawak, which at that time was a subject territory of the Kingdom of Brunei. In 1840 Brooke assisted the Sultan of Brunei in putting down an insurrection, and as a reward was granted the sovereignty and trade of Sarawak, being proclaimed Rajah of Sarawak in 1841. During the late 1840’s Brooke befriended Charles Thomas Constantine Grant of Kilgraston, an elder brother of Anne and Augustus Grant, who was then serving as a midshipman aboard the Royal Navy’s HMS Agincourt. Resigning his commission, Grant was appointed Aide de Camp to Brooke and later rose to become the Rajah’s private secretary. When he took up his post with the future Rajah of Sarawak, Charles Grant became a member of a tight-knit circle of Scotsmen who had entered the service of the Rajahs of Sarawak, chiefly from the families of Brooke, Johnson and Grant, who strengthened their ties with the white rajahs through intermarriage, the marriage in 1855 of Anne Grant and John Brooke Johnson-Brooke being an early example of the many ties that were forged during the ensuing decades. The connection between the Brooke family and the Grants of Kilgraston was eventually to come full circle in 1950, when August Grant’s great-nephew, Lieutenant-Colonel John Patrick Grant of Kilgraston (who assumed the additional title of Nisbet-Hamilton of Biel in 1920 to become John Patrick Nisbet-Hamilton-Grant of Biel) died without an heir, wherupon he was succeeded by his cousin, Vice-Admiral Basil Charles Barrington Brooke C.B., C.B.E. (1895-1983), the grandson of Anne Grant and John Brooke Johnson-Brooke, and a cousin of Charles Vyner Brooke, the 3rd and last White Rajah of Sarawak.Robert Henry Grant’s India General Service Medal at one time formed part of an extensive collection of family medals and decorations on display in the Grant family seat, Kilgraston House, Bridge of Earn, Perthshire. In addition to Captain Grant’s medal, that display included the orders, medals and decorations of Lieutenant-General Sir Hope Grant (1808-1875), the hero of the Indian Mutiny and China campaign of 1857-60; Lieutenant Francis Augustus Grant, Cameron Highlanders (1829-1854), who died in the Crimea; Lieutenant-Colonel John Patrick Grant (1872-1950), Seaforth Highlanders, who is depicted as the central figure in Lady Butler’s famous 1902 painting “Stand Fast Craigellachie”; and Beatrice Grant, who saw service with the British Red Cross and YMCA during the First World War.

The framed collection of Grant family medals included a manuscript list of those medals, a photocopy of which accompanies Robert Grant’s medal.

Captain Grant was also the uncle of Lieutenant-Colonel John Patrick Grant, D.S.O., Seaforth Highlanders, who was depicted as the central figure in Lady Elizabeth Butler’s famous painting “Stand Fast Craigelachie”, which is now housed in the Scottish Military Museum, Edinburgh.

That painting, in which the then 2nd Lieutenant Grant is depicted as a lone Seaforth Highlander officer standing, claymore in hand, defiantly facing the enemy, in the midst of an engagement during the 1895 relief of Chitral. “Stand Fast Craigellachie”, was painted as a tribute to the gallantry of Scottish soldiers during the Chitral campaign of 1895, the painting’s title being based on the war cry of the Clan Grant.

Grant is believed to have been chosen by Lady Butler as the model for her portrait because she had met him on numerous occasions, and was familiar with his military bearing and reputation as a soldier. As both a soldier and published writer, Grant moved freely between military and literary-artistic circles. In that regard, Grant was continuing a family tradition, his great-uncle, Sir Francis Grant (1803-1878) having been president of the Royal Academy.

The badge of the Clan Grant comprises an image of a burning hill, with a garter around bearing the clan motto “Craig Elachie”. The burning hill depicted, Craig Elachie, was historically the rallying point for the Clan Grant in times of turmoil, signal fires being lit on the summit of the hill as a call to arms. That clan motto, “Craig Elachie” eventually evolving into the clan war cry, “Stand Fast Craigelachie”.

Lady Butler’s painting was intended not just as a tribute to the gallantry of Scottish soldiers generally, but more particularly to the Grant family’s tradition of military service during the 19th century, hence the painting’s title, “Stand Fast Craigelachie”, the battle cry of the Grant family.

PROVENANCE: Mellors & Kirk, Nottingham, 16 September 2015, lot 872 (part), a family group of orders, decorations and medals to the Grant and Brooke familiesLADY BUTLER’S “STAND FAST CRAIGELLACHIE” IS CURRENTLY ON DISPLAY IN THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL WAR MUSEUM, EDINBURGH CASTLE, ALONGSIDE A DESCRIPTIVE LABEL, WHICH READS AS FOLLOWS:

“‘Stand Fast Craigellachie’ by Lady Elizabeth Butler, 1902, depicting an incident involving the 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders on the North West Frontier of India in 1895. It is a typically romantic image of highland heroism by one of the best-known military artists of the Victorian period. The title ‘Stand Fast Craigellachie’ is the traditional motto of Clan Grant. The central figure is believed to be Lieutenant John Patrick Grant and the action is thought to have taken place during the Chitral campaign.”