1st Punjab Cavalry

The soldier from the 1st Punjab Cavalry (Prince Albert Victor's Own) shown is from a photograph by Johnson & Hoffman, ca. 1887.

It is important to start by tracing changes in regimental nomenclature:

pre-1903  1st Punjab Cavalry (Prince Albert Victor's Own)
1903  21st Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (Frontier Force)
1914-18  21st Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) (Daly's Horse)
1922  11th Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (Frontier Force)
1945  11th (Prince Albert Victor's Own) Cavalry (Frontier Force)
post-1947  to Pakistan

Our Sowar shows a clear group of two medals:

The regiment as a whole was only eligible for the bar to Ahmed Khel, so we have his medal group pretty much narrowed down. But who is this?

Two things are clear:

  1. He is a Sikh. The net holding his beard is clear in the picture.

  2. He is, at the time of the picture, a sowar. Though he might have been promoted since the award (and possibly reduced, but this seems unlikely), he is a sowar.

This cuts down the list substantially, as the only I.O.M. awards to regimental Sowars for Afghanistan (and, indeed, pre-18??) were two third-class awards:

These citations appear side-by-side in Army Order 533 of 1880:

"The undermentioned men of the 1st Punjab Cavy. Punjab Frontier Force were admitted to the 3rd Class of the Order.
". . .
"No. 1255, SOWAR BOOTAH SING, diaplayed gallant conduct in action at Azzu, on the 23rd April 1880, in singly engaging and cutting down in a hand-to-hand fight two of the enemy.
"No. 1588, SOWARD JOWAHIT SING, displayed gallant conduct in action at Ahmed Khel on the 19th April 1880, on which occasion he dismounted and attacked two of the enemy who had taken a post in a nallah killing one in a hand-to-hand encounter."

It is an unfortunate fact that it will be difficult to go beyond this in determining which sowar is presented above.

http://haynese.winthrop.edu/india/medals/IOM/punjabcav.html
last revised 6 May 1998
Ed Haynes
Back to Indian Order of Merit Page