Watch List notes:

*An Scarce Officer's Tibet and N.W. Persia Group of 5 awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel Harvey St. George Hume Harvey-Kelly, 2nd / 1st Madras Pioneers, late 32nd and 64th Pioneers, Indian Army, comprising: Tibet 1903-05, single clasp, Gyantse (Lieut. H. St. G. H. Harvey. Kelly 64th Pioneers); British War Medal (Maj. H. St. G. Harvey Kelly.); General Service Medal, 1918-1962, single clasp, N. W. Persia (Major H. St. G. H. Harvey Kelly.); India General Service Medal, 1908-1935, single clasp, Waziristan 1921-24 (Maj, H, St, G, H, Harvey-Kelly, 2-1 M, Pnrs,); Jubilee Medal 1935; Group loose, with original riband bar, lightly polished and cleaned, very fine or better (5). The Harvey-Kelly family were a landed family from Westmeath, Ireland, and Harvey St. George Hume Harvey-Kelly was born in 1880. He passed out from Sandhurst in 1899, following which he received his first commission as a Second Lieutenant (Unattached List) in the Indian Staff Corps on 17 January 1900, as shown in the original warrant included with the lot. Soon after he was made a 2nd Lieutenant with the 32nd Pioneer's, and sent to join Younghusband's Tibet campaign of 1903-05, where he was present at the action at Niani (also spelt Naini) on 26 June 1904, on the strategic main road leading to Gyantse. As recorded in his personal journal, the storming and subsequent capture of this heavily fortified monastery was his first experience of battle ('My first show!'), and he wrote: "2 Coys 32nd were ordered to attack under B- [Colonel Herbert Ralph Brander, C.B.] skirmished around selected house + garden about 150 yds from the village, and as we approached on the other side the enemy opened fire. A row of 4 houses loopholed & barricaded doors + windows, nothing to be seen but puffs of smoke, and we in a ditch, open fields between us, firing at the loopholes...maxims chattering, 7 pounders banging. After a while the enemy fire died down and then ceased. 'That's all that then, said B-, if they know what's good for them – they've bolted. I'm going to rush the house.' which with a wild yell he proceeded to do. Up we jumped and followed him but no sooner had we shown ourselves than the enemy's fire recommenced. They had been waiting for a better target. On we ran, one man down on my left, & so up to the first house. B- hammered on the door, so did the Sepoys, not a sound from within and no way of getting in. No signs of Tibetans, must have bolted. Gun cotton was left behind by order...Orders came from Colonel Hogge – 23rd will clear the houses, 32nd the garden in the middle of the village. The garden was a walled in enclosure – loopholed – gateway bricked up, and a clear run of 60 yards to reach it. B started giving orders to circle behind...we followed, not a sign of the enemy, our own shrapnel playing hell's bells above our heads. B reached the gate and we had the bricks down, waiting to rush them. Another minute and we were in. Not a soul in the place. Having carried out our orders, there we sat in the shade of a tree and had tiffin...until it was time to march to Gyantse." Harvey-Kelly also took part in the operations at and around the mountain fortress at Gyantse, between 5 May and 6 July 1904, and then during the march to Lhassa between 14 July and 3 August 1904. Afterwards he served in the 64th Pioneers between c. late 1904 and 1907, and then in North West Persia and Waziristan between September 1919 and May 1921 with the 2nd Battalion / 1st Madras Pioneers. He retired from service in the Indian Army in 1928, whereupon he joined the South Indian Railway as Executive Officer, Golden Rock Colony. He worked in this capacity until 9 October 1935, when he decided to leave India and return home, having been presented with the King's Silver Jubilee medal at a Durbar in Trichinopoly just weeks before on 3 September 1935. He appears to have spent his retirement in Bedford, where his sons attended Bedford Modern School. He sons served with distinction in the Great War: Herbert Dunsterville Harvey-Kelly was a famous pilot - the first to land in France and the first RFC pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft before being shot down in Bloody April and dying from wounds. Another son, Charles Hamilton Hume Harvey-Kelly, became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Baluch Light Infantry, served as Military Attaché to Kabul, and won the D.S.O. This group offered with an original warrant, portrait photograph, an original copy of the 'Farewell Address' to Harvey-Kelly from the Golden Rock Colony, letter from the South Indian Railway Co. confirming his nomination for the King's Silver Jubilee Medal 1935, and other related research. Harvey-Kelly's archive, including his journal and photographs of the Tibet expedition, will be offered for sale at Sotheby's London, Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History, 15 November 2016 (£1500-2000)