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Auction: 21101 - Orders, Decorations and Medals e-Auction No. 2 - including Masonic Jewels
Lot: 17

India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Umbeyla (Lieut. E. Wells, 13th Bengl. Lanrs.), test mark in field, nearly very fine

Ernest Wells was a son of John Joseph Wells, a banker, and his wife Julia, née Cooke; he was born at Bromley, Kent, on 27 February 1841.

After education at The Temple School, Brighton, and tuition by The Rev. E. E. Montford at Deeping St James, Cambridgeshire, he entered the East India Company's Military Seminary, Addiscombe, on 4 December 1857, leaving the following July. A cadet for the Bengal Cavalry, he passed the Military Committee at East India House in mid-April 1859, being commissioned Cornet in the Bengal Cavalry General List and embarking for India in the Newcastle on 21 July 1859.

On arrival at Calcutta in October, he was posted for training to 2nd Bengal European Light Cavalry, being promoted Lieutenant on 21 July 1860. He was posted to 13th Bengal Cavalry (Lancers) on 3 April 1862 and remained with that regiment until mid-1868. He served with 13th Lancers in the Second Yusufzai Expedition, October-December 1863 (Medal & clasp). He was Third Squadron Officer in the unit from 1864-65, Adjutant for three months in 1865 and Second Squadron Officer 1865-68, after which he left the Regiment. He served at Nowgong (now Nargaon) until January 1871, being promoted Captain on 13 October 1870. In January 1871, he was certified as sick and left India on furlough, never to return; he retired on 22 January 1874.

Once home, he lived initially with his widowed mother in Bromley, then being recorded in lodgings in that town in 1881. A decade later, he was living as a boarder at The Vicarage, Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, where he died on 21 August 1893. The illness contracted in India in c.1870 may have affected his mental capabilities since, in the 1891 Census, he was noted as a 'Lunatic'.


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Sold for
£240

Starting price
£180