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Auction: 22075 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 79

The China 1900 Medal awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel H. D. Pearson, Royal Engineers, who won a brace of "mentions" for the Boxer Rebellion, signed (on behalf of Great Britain) the treaty concluding the work of the Anglo-Liberian Boundary Commission in 1903, and afterwards embarked on a long and distinguished career as a Director of Surveys in the Sudan: for his services as a Liaison Officer to the Arab Forces at Jeddah in 1916-17 (which post had earlier been occupied by Lawrence of Arabia) he was awarded the Order of El Nahda II Class - a rare distinction indeed for a British officer - and the Distinguished Service Order

China 1900, 1 clasp, Relief of Pekin (Lieutenant H. D. Pearson. R.E.), good very fine

[D.S.O.] London Gazette 1 January 1918.
[Order of the Nile, III Class] London Gazette 1 December 1917.
[Order of El Nadha, II Class] London Gazette 30 September 1920.

Hugh Drummond Pearson was born in Kensington, London on 17 February 1873 and was educated at St. Paul’s School, from which he passed direct into Woolwich. Commissioned into the Royal Engineers as a 2nd Lieutenant in July 1892, he proceeded to India in 1894, was advanced to Lieutenant in the following year and witnessed active service in the Tirah and Punjab Frontier operations of 1897-98.
In July 1900, he was attached to No. 4 Company, Bengal Sappers & Miners, and embarked for China, where he was present at the Relief of Pekin following a difficult journey in a convoy of 14 junks on the Peiho river, and subjection to occasional sniping. His Company was subsequently employed in improving communications and accommodation about the Legation Quarter, with Pearson himself leading a section employed in driving a tunnel through the Great Wall of the Tartar City - which on completion was 50 feet high and 70 feet wide at its base. Afterwards he was detached to the Temple of Heaven to construct winter quarters for the garrison and, in January 1901, with a team of 70 sappers, laid three-and-a-half miles of railway branch line from Fengtai to Likachao - work that was hindered by the extreme cold, snow and blizzards. In May, Pearson was appointed Orderly Officer to Brigadier-General Spratt Bowring, R.E., and remained behind in Peking to assist in the completion of the new defences. He was twice Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 14 May 1901 and 13 December 1901, refer respectively). Pearson died, on 28 December 1922, of black-water fever at Um-Dafog, in the Darfur Province of Sudan.

Note that another China 1900, clasp Relief of Pekin, formed part of Lt-Col. Pearson's group when sold at Noonan's on 23 June 2005. That example was named to the recipient in the Bengal Sappers & Miners rather than Royal Engineers, but the Medal offered here appears entirely as issued. This Lot is also accompanied by a brown paper 'Spink's' envelope, with '£.1-15' annotated in ink on the front.

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Sold for
£1,300