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Auction: 24113 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 104

Afghanistan 1878-80, 1 clasp, Ali Musjid (1505, Pte. F. Lanham, 1/17th Regt.), light contact marks, very fine

Frederick Lanham was born circa 1842 in Bishopstone, Wiltshire and worked as a plough boy and later as a carter. When he was 24 years old, Lanham enlisted with the 30th (Cambridgeshire) Regiment of Foot at Salisbury for a ten-year period of engagement on 21 April 1866. The next year, he was posted overseas to Canada on 12 June 1867 and saw service first in Quebec and then in Halifax. He served in Canada for two years before volunteering to transfer to the 1/17th (Leicestershire) Regiment of Foot on 1 August 1869 and was posted to India on 14 February 1870 to serve there with his new Regiment. In India, he re-engaged at Lucknow to complete a total of 21 years of service.

Lanham was stationed in Afghanistan in November 1878 to serve in the Second Afghan War. The 1/17th Foot entered in General Samuel Browne's Peshawar Valley Field Force and took place in the first action of the War at the Battle of Ali Musjid on 21 November 1878. The 1/17th Foot were in the Second Brigade, which had been sent the previous evening to turn the position. General Browne advanced up the Khyber and, after an artillery duel lasting the entire day, eventually outflanked the Afghans who abandoned the fortress that night. The Regiment was engaged in another conflict the following year at the Battle of Fatehabad on 2 April 1879 ahead of leaving Afghanistan en route for Peshawar on 14 August.

The unit was retitled the 1/Leicestershires in July 1881 with Lanham's service in India finally coming to an end on 9 March 1882. Back home in England, a few years later Lanham landed into some trouble when he was absent without leave on three occasions early in 1884 and was subsequently imprisoned for nearly a month in consequence of his behaviour. When he was discharged the next year on 10 November 1885, at his own request, his conduct was cited as 'very bad' and as having 'intemperate' habits.

Following his military career Lanham was married in early 1887 to Fanny Dale in the Wilton District of Wiltshire, with the couple later living together in Bishopstone and Lanham working as an agricultural labourer. The 1901 census records them as still residing together in Bishopstone, though now on Netton Street. Lanham, an army pensioner, died later that year in Wilshire at age 59; sold together with copied research.

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Sold for
£190

Starting price
£100