Major-General Sir Charles John Melliss · VC, KCB, KCMG
The hunter, the decorated officer and the prisoners of Kut.
Melliss’s early book belongs to the dangerous pursuit of big game. His later papers tell a different story of danger: command in Mesopotamia, the surrender at Kut and efforts to keep fellow prisoners alive.
Across the Gulf of Aden from Arabia lay a country of thorn, dry river-beds and waterless distance. From Berbera, Captain Charles John Melliss of the 9th Bombay Infantry went up-country towards the Haud with ten camels, twelve Somali men, two donkeys, an Abyssinian pony and provisions for two months, in search of lion; the closing chapters follow him on horseback, spear in hand, after the African wart-hog.
The sporting author and the senior officer must be kept in chronological proportion. Lion-Hunting in Somali-land appeared in 1895, before the Victoria Cross and the commands of the First World War.
Honours and distinctions
Decoration · 1901Victoria Cross (VC)
Gazetted 15 January 1901 for action at Obassa on 30 September 1900 and other gallantry in the Ashanti campaign.
Order · attested 1916Order of the Bath · Knight Commander (KCB)
Contemporary Gazette style establishes possession by this date; no award date inferred.
Order · after 1918Order of St Michael and St George · Knight Commander (KCMG)
Explore the life and work
Origins and early years
Born at Mhow into a military family, he received a commission in 1882 and transferred to the Indian Army in 1884.
The course of a life
African and Indian service included the Ashanti War of 1900, in which his actions won the Victoria Cross. At Kut he shared defeat and captivity; his letters record determined efforts to secure help for the men who suffered most.
The literary work
Lion-Hunting in Somali-land preserves the outlook and practice of a nineteenth-century military sportsman. The diaries and letters of the later campaigns belong to another phase of the same life.
The legacy
Melliss’s reputation cannot be contained by the hunting narrative. The care he attempted for prisoners after Kut gives his military biography a weight quite different from sporting adventure.
