The Sword Presented to Major William George Drummond Stewart, VC, in Recognition of his Services in the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny Campaign

Abstract

In August 1859, at the Birnam Hotel in Perthshire, Lord Panmure, sometime Principal Secretary of State for War in Palmerston’s Government, presented this fine silver-gilt mounted basket-hilted sword on behalf of the tenantry of the Drummond Stewart estates at Grandtully, Perthshire, to Major William George Drummond Stewart, VC, the only son of the laird, Sir William Drummond Stewart, 7th Baronet. The token was given not only to mark the officer’s safe return from the Crimean War (1854–56) and the Indian Mutiny Campaign (1857–58), in which he and his regiment, the 93rd Highlanders, had greatly distinguished themselves, but also in recognition of the pride and interest taken in Stewart’s personal ‘gallant discharge of duty’, which had earned him, at Lucknow, on 16 November 1857, the newly constituted Victoria Cross.