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Auction: 19001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 35

Candahar 1842 (Private Henry Toombs H.M. 40th Regiment), naming officially engraved in running script, original steel clip and straight bar suspension, fitted with a decorative silver riband buckle, light contact marks and edge bruising, nearly very fine

Provenance:
J. B. Hayward, October 1972.

Only 130 medals with this reverse were issued to European troops, including 64 to the 40th Regiment.

Henry Toombs attested for the 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot at Stroud, Gloucestershire on 13 December 1837. He arrived at Bombay on 23 February 1839, joining the Regiment on garrison duty. Assigned to Sir John Keane's Army of the Indus, the 40th marched to Cabul in August 1840, helping to restore Shah Shujah to power. The Shah proved unpopular among his own people, with disaffected Afghan tribesmen rallying behind the pretender Dost Mohammed. The 40th, with Major-General Sir William Nott in overall command, staged an epic defence of Candahar during the spring of 1842, after General Elphinstone's column had been massacred by Dost Mohammed's followers on the retreat from Kabul. Though vastly outnumbered, the Regiment's morale remained high. Toombs died on active service at Candahar on 23 February 1842 (WO 12/5352); sold with a copy of Gordon Everson's article The Fighting Fortieth at Candahar (1972), which gives a reconstructed roll of the 2 officers and 62 men of the 40th who qualified for this Medal, the majority of whom were murdered or died during the campaign.

Recommended reading:

Centurion, Men whose Fathers were Men (London, 1925).



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Sold for
£2,000