2-969-776 - /Heritage Images

Private John Penn, 17th Lancers, with Eleven Honours, from the Crimea, from a photograph by Mayall, 1856. '...left an orphan before he was eight years of age, by the death of his father...he entered the cavalry as soon as he had attained the standard height. This excellent soldier has seen eighteen years' service. He was through the Afghanistan campaign, under General Pollock, for which he received the Cabul medal...He fought at Goojerat, when the Sikhs were again defeated, which was the last battle fought with that race of Indians...Penn proceeded to the Crimea. He was in the action of the Alma...and in the Light Cavalry charge of Balaclava, for which he received the medal for distinguished conduct in the field...[he was] invalided home...[having had] his right collar-bone fractured, and the lower jaw broken by a horse falling on him when he was at field-drill in India in 1852'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.