Hello all,
I'm not sure if this will help with the identification of the medals but here's his obituary from the Times newspaper of 2nd March 1940.
Obituary - Colonel Sir Charles Yate
Pendjeh and Parliament
Colonel Sir Charles Yate, who died yesterday at Madeley Hall, Shropshire, at the age of 90, rose in the Indian Political Service to be Chief Commissioner of Baluchistan, and was afterwards for 15 years Conservative M.P. for the Melton Mowbray Division. During the greater part of the time he was the only former head of an Indian province in the House, where he filled a distinct role as an upholder of the fine traditions of British rule in India and a severe critic of the methods and Indian policy of the late Mr. Edwin Montague. Nor was Yate a mere observer of the play of party fortunes in the House, he spoke frequently on current questions not directly connected with India.
Born on August 28, 1849, Charles Edward Yate was the eldest son of the late Rev. Charles Yate, B.D., Fellow and Dean of St. John's College, Cambridge, and vicar of Holme-on-Spalding Moor, Yorks. At Shrewsbury school, under the famous Dr. Kennedy, he was a contemporary of Sir George Grierson, O.M. Entering the Army in November, 1867, he went out to India to join the 49th Royal Berkshire Regiment. Admitted in 1871 to the Bombay Staff Corps, he was transferred to the political service, and did useful work as an assistant political superintendent.
In the second Afghan War, Yate reverted to military duty and was appointed to the command of a detachment of the 29th Bombay Infantry. He took part in the famous march to the relief of Kandahar as a member of the staff of Lord Roberts, and was the Political Officer in charge of the city till its evacuation in May, 1881. Subsequently he was attached to the Afghan Boundry Commission of 1884 and assisted materially in the progress of the demarcation. He was in charge at Pendjeh when the Russian ultimatum to and subsequent attack on the Afghan troops there on March 30, 1885, brought us to the point of war with the Northern Power. A detailed account of his intrepidity and resource in this critical situation as given in Sir Percy Sykes's biography of Sir Mortimer Durrand. Yate, hoping for the best and realizing the Russian appreciation of good cheer, invited Zakrchevski and his officers to an entertainment between the two lines of mounted men. "For hosts and guests alike it was a memorable banquet, possibly coupled with a sense of impending tragedy." Later in the year Yate was deputed to Herat in connexion with the fortification of the city.
For these services and his completion of the Russo-Afghan frontier, Yate received the C.S.I. and the C.M.G.
Political work at Muscat was followed by transfer in 1890 to Thal Chotiali, in Baluchistan. Once more called upon to adjudicate on a Russo-Afghan controversy, on the division of the water of the Kushk River, he was able to effect a satisfactory arrangement by the Autumn of 1893. Next he spent some years at Meshed as Consul-General, and he embodied his experiences in a valuable work entitled "Khurasan and Seistan" (1900). A dozen years earlier he had published his "Northern Afghanistan". In 1898 Yate became British Resident in the Rajputana States, and in 1900 was appointed Chief Commissioner in Baluchistan. In 1901 he took part in the operations against a rebel chief at Makram, being present at the attack on the capture of Nodiz Fort. The memorial to his services following his retirement in 1904 comprised a presentation portrait by the Hon. John Collier, a duplicate in the museum at Quetta, and a clock tower and fountain there.
Yate was a man of great energy and public spirit, and after two unsuccessful contests was elected at the end of 1910 Unionist member for Melton Mowbray. He continued to hold the seat until 1924, and made his country home at Asfordby House in the division. His interventions in debates relating to India showed his attachment to the old standards of administration there, as well as a keen desire for Indian progress along certain lines. He had a profound dislike of Mr. Montague's policy, and there was a widespread feeling that he should not have been excluded from the Select Committee on the Government of India Bill of 1919. Subsequently he was nominated to the Standing Joint committee on Indian Affairs. In 1921 he was created a baronet at Madeley Hall, Shropshire, and after retiring from politics he went to live in that Tudor mansion which has been the home of the family for six generations.
In 1899 Yate married Charlotte Heath daughter of the late J. Hume Burnley, formerly his Majesty's Charge d'Affaires at Dresden; she died in October 1936. There are two daughters, but he leaves no heir, for in the autumn of 1910 he lost his only son.
Tiffin
