Lot Essay
Sold with a quantity of original Masonic certificates, all inscribed to the recipient and circa 1900, and a printed Address, with accompanying silk printed sheet, from colleagues on his retirement at Meerut.
Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Barnes Peacock was born in July 1873 and commissioned into the Indian Army in January 1893. Gazetted to the 31st Punjab Infantry, he went on to witness active service in the North West Frontier operations of 1897-98 and was present at the defence and relief of Malakand and in the action at Landakai. In subsequent operations in the Mohmand country, he was severely wounded in the thigh in the action at Agrah on 30.9.1897:
'The ridge [at Agrah] up which the 31st were stubbornly fighting their way was by no means so easily taken. The ground consisted, for the most part, of high-terraced fields, commanded by strongly-built sungars amongst the huge boulders at the top, and it was here that Colonel O'Brien fell mortally wounded while gallantly leading his men to the assault. In spite of their Commanding Officer being killed, the 31st pushed on under the covering fire of Major Fegan's Mountain Battery; these guns, with the greatest precision, dropping shell after shell amongst the Mohmands, who, although having lost heavily, still stuck manfully to their position, and as many of the huge rocks and boulders proved impervious to artillery fire, it was only the bayonets of our Sepoys that finally turned them out'.
No doubt as result of his wounds, Peacock does not appear to have seen further active service. Advanced to Lieutenant-Colonel soon after the end of the Great War, he was placed on the Retired List in April 1925.
Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Barnes Peacock was born in July 1873 and commissioned into the Indian Army in January 1893. Gazetted to the 31st Punjab Infantry, he went on to witness active service in the North West Frontier operations of 1897-98 and was present at the defence and relief of Malakand and in the action at Landakai. In subsequent operations in the Mohmand country, he was severely wounded in the thigh in the action at Agrah on 30.9.1897:
'The ridge [at Agrah] up which the 31st were stubbornly fighting their way was by no means so easily taken. The ground consisted, for the most part, of high-terraced fields, commanded by strongly-built sungars amongst the huge boulders at the top, and it was here that Colonel O'Brien fell mortally wounded while gallantly leading his men to the assault. In spite of their Commanding Officer being killed, the 31st pushed on under the covering fire of Major Fegan's Mountain Battery; these guns, with the greatest precision, dropping shell after shell amongst the Mohmands, who, although having lost heavily, still stuck manfully to their position, and as many of the huge rocks and boulders proved impervious to artillery fire, it was only the bayonets of our Sepoys that finally turned them out'.
No doubt as result of his wounds, Peacock does not appear to have seen further active service. Advanced to Lieutenant-Colonel soon after the end of the Great War, he was placed on the Retired List in April 1925.