Beschreibung:

Colonel Willoughby Verner Constable, a pair of medals, awarded to Royal Engineers, comprising Egypt Medal, with single clasp, Suakin 1885, named to Capt'n W.V. Constable. R.E., and Khedive's Star 1884-86, together with Khedive's Star miniature and a St. John's Ambulance Association medal, awarded to Lucy Constable (née Gordon), with clasps for 1915,1916,1917,1918. Note Colonel Willoughby Verner Constable was Brother-in-Law to Colonel George Hamilton Gordon. Willoughby Verner Constable was born in Ireland on the 27th of September 1853 and commissioned a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on the 12th of September 1872. Following a period of training at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, Kent, In January of 1876 Constable was serving at Roorkee in Bengal, India. While serving there he was promoted to the rank of Captain in 1884 and in December of that same year he was serving as Assistant Engineer, 1st Grade, in the Department of Public Works, on the West Rajputana State Railway, Southern Section. This was his first of many assignments as an engineer on the railroads of India. In 1885 Captain Constable was posted to the command of Major-General Sir Gerald Graham, V.C. at Suakin in the Sudan. Sir Gerald's plan for operations in the Sudan called for the construction of a railway from Suakin to Berber on the Nile, a distance of about 280 miles. It would be fair to assume that Captain Constable's experience with railway construction in India was one of the reasons for his assignment to Suakin. This was to be his only campaign service. He retired from the Army on the 21st of December 1904 and was appointed an Honorary Colonel. He became Chairman of the Madras and South Mahratta Railway Company in 1908. This lot also includes some research papers including a resume of Constable's 23 years on the Indian Railways.