Standing 21in (53cm) tall on its plinth, and hallmarked for Stephen Smith (London 1872), it depicts a Lancer officer kitted out for patrol with his mount and is engraved A 9th Lancer Indian Mutiny 1857-58.
A plaque records the name and service details of Surgeon Major John Clifford of the 9th Dragoons, who was attached to the 9th Lancers throughout the Mutiny (more properly now called the First War of India’s Independence). His Mutiny Medal included three bars for Lucknow, Relief of Lucknow and Delhi.
After a series of Army amalgamations, the 9th Lancers, described in their day as ‘the beau ideal of what a British Cavalry Regiment ought to be in oriental countries’, is today part of the armoured cavalry regiment, The Royal Lancers (Queen Elizabeth’s Own). Attachment to the history of the regiment, founded in 1715 as Owen Wynne’s Regiment of Dragoons in response to the Jacobite uprising, remains strong.
Pitched at £8000-10,000, the centrepiece sold to a retired officer of the regiment at £12,300.
