Comprises eight medals as follows: Order of the British Empire (military); Indian General Service Medal 1854-1895 with bar for ‘Burma 1885-7’; Africa General Service Medal 1902-56 with bar for Somaliland 1902-04; 1914-15 Star, British War Medal; Victory Medal; George V Coronation Medal – Delhi Durbar 1911; French Legion of Honour [? WW1]

Captain Hewett belonged to the British Navy [Her Majesty’s Indian Naval Service], serving in India and Burma and had some association with the East India Company. He served during the ‘Third Burma War’ which arose because of the threatened interference by the King of Burma in the timber trade of the Bombay-Burma Trading Company, and resulted in the occupation of Mandalay and the deposition of King Thibaw.

His son Mr Neil Hewett, who died in 1998, migrated to New Zealand with his family following his retirement from the Bombay-Burma Trading Corporation, circa 1950. He went first to Australia, but before long decided that he preferred New Zealand. He came initially to Auckland and later lived at Tauranga, then Rotorua and finally at Puketapu in the Hawke’s Bay. During the 1950s he was New Zealand’s representative on Unicef [for East Africa].

Mr Hewett previously donated several Burmese wooden carvings ‘collected’ by his father to the Auckland Museum [see below : ethnology collections]. They relate to his military service in Burma, in particular the seated wooden figure was from King Thibaw’s royal barge, and received by Captain Hewett at the time of King Thibaw’s surrender to the British troops. Family tradition also has it that Captain Hewett received the surrender sword from King Thebaw.