A most interesting Army of India medal for Kirkee and Poona awarded to Major J. A. Moore, a...

A most interesting Army of India medal for Kirkee and Poona awarded to Major J. A. Moore, a Captain in Russell’s Cavalry in the Nizam’s Service, who began his career in the Royal Navy and rose to become a Director of the Hon. East India Company Army of India 1799-1826, 1 clasp, Kirkee and Poona (Capt. J. A. Moore, Russell’s Cav. N.S.) short hyphen reverse, officially impressed naming, polished overall and naming a little weak in places, edge bruising, therefore good fine £3,600-£4,400 --- Provenance: Glendining’s, December 1966; Rev. R. Fitzpatrick Collection, privately published catalogues 1972 and 1974. John Arthur Moore was born in Ireland in September 1791 and entered the Royal Navy as a Supernumerary aboard H.M.S. Royal George on 22 July 1806. He transferred to H.M.S. Ajax off Cadiz in October 1806, under the command of Hon. Henry Blackwood, which ship, whilst at anchor off Tenedos, accidentally caught fire and blew up in February 1807. Transferred as a result to H.M.S. Thunderer as a Midshipman under Captain John Talbot, he took part in the ensuing passage of the Dardanelles and the destruction of the Turkish Squadron off Point Pesquies, being slightly wounded in these operations. Next appointed to H.M.S. Warspite, again under the command of Captain Blackwood, on the Home station, and also in the Mediterranean where he participated in a ‘very gallant skirmish’, in which the British with a slender force beat back a powerful division of the French fleet on 20 July 1810. In November 1813 he became Master’s Mate of H.M.S. Orontes, under the command of Captain Nathaniel Day Cochrane, with whom he served on the coast of Ireland and in the West Indies, until promoted to Lieutenant on 18 February 1815. On 14 March 1817, he signed a Free Mariner’s Covenant with the Hon. East India Company, and arrived in India in 1817 as a Captain-Lieutenant with Russell’s Cavalry in the Nizam’s Service, a unit raised by the Resident of Hyderabad, Henry Russell, in late 1817. Moore was present at the battle of Kirkee, 5 November, and at the capture of Poona, 11-16 November, 1817. In the early 1850s when he received his medal he was a Major on the pension establishment of His Highness the Nizam’s Army, living at Aurungabad. In May 1823 Moore was paymaster of a Division, and for many years held the appointment as Military Secretary to the Commanding Officer in the Himalayas. In 1837 he was also holding the appointment of auditor and retired with a pension at the end of 1838. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in February 1846, appointed a Director of the Hon. East India Company on 1 May 1850, and retired by rotation in April of the following year. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a Member of the British Archaeological Association. Major Moore died in London on 7 July 1860.