A Great War campaign group of three awarded to Captain H. C. Gouldsbury, Royal Berkshire Regiment, attached 1st Battalion, King’s African Rifles, who was posthumously mentioned in despatches following his death from malaria at Tanga in August 1916 - a noted poet and author, his work ‘received a most appreciative and laudatory welcome from the English Press’

1914-15 Star (Lieut. H. C. Gouldsbury, R. Berks. R.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt. H. C. Gouldsbury), together with related Memorial Plaque (Henry Cullen Gouldsbury), in its original card sleeve and O.H.M.S. envelope, addressed to his widow, with Buckingham Palace message, the medals contained in an old glazed display frame, extremely fine (4) £600-800

Henry Cullen Gouldsbury was born May 1891, the eldest of C. E. Gouldsbury, late Indian Police, and was educated at Downside, in addition to time at the United Services College, Westward Ho! and at St. Edmund’s College, Ware. At Downside, he was a ‘spirited boy of considerable force and marked ability’, and ‘his subsequent fame as a writer came as no surprise to those who remembered him at school’.

Following brief service in the 5th Battalion, Royal Irish Militia, in 1900, two years later Gouldsbury went out to Southern Rhodesia and joined the British South Africa Police. Having then transferred to the Northern Rhodesian Administration in 1908, he was serving as a Native Commissioner on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, when he lent valuable assistance to the Chartered Company in regard to the Belgium Battalion stationed at Mporokoso. However, after three unsuccessful applications for active employment in the Rhodesian Forces, he resigned his position and returned to England to offer his services. Duly commissioned in the 9th battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, in March 1915, he was embarked for East Africa three months later, on attachment to the King’s African Rifles.

Ten months on frontline duties having ensued, he was advanced to Captain and posted as a Liaison Officer to Colonel Molitor, C.O. of the Belgian Army operating in Uganda. Four months later he was appointed Military Landing Officer at Tanga, and it was while employed in this capacity that he contracted malaria, dying in the local hospital in August 1916. He was buried with those who fell in the first attack on Tanga and was posthumously mentioned in despatches by General Smuts ‘for meritorious service in East Africa’ (London Gazette 10 February 1917 refers).

Of his earlier career as an author and poet, an obituarist noted:

‘In spite of the varied labours of an active and energetic life, he found time to continue his literary activities, and as a novelist and poet soon acquired a wide reputation as an interpreter of South Africa, both in its attractive and repellent moods. His novels, Circe's Garden (1907) and The Tree of Bitter Fruit (1910), are full of interest and display much power and thought, and he was joint author, with the late J. West Sheane, of The Great Plateau of Northern Rhodesia, a brilliant descriptive book, published by Edward Arnold in 1911. It is, however, as a writer of verse, at once vehement and strong, yet marked by great tenderness and beauty, that he is best known and most admired. His finest poems, some of which first appeared at Bulawayo, under the title of Rhodesian Rhymes (1909), have been collected in the two volumes, Songs out of Exile (1912), aptly described as "Verses of African Sunshine, Shadow, and Black Man's Twilight," and From the Outposts (1914), published in London by T. Fisher Unwin. These works have received a most appreciative and laudatory welcome from the English Press.’

Gouldsbury’s widow, Constance, of 2, Northcote House, Gypsy Hill, London, was eventually granted an annual pension of £75, together with a compassionate allowance of £20 for her son. Owing, however, to errors made by the Colonial Office, and the loss of all her papers in the Arabia, for many months she had to rely on donations from the Lady Lansdowne’s Officers Families Fund and her income of 27s. per week from the Contacts Department at the War Office.

Sold with the recipient’s original M.I.D. certificate, dated 22 November 1916, in the name of ‘T./Capt. H. C. Gouldsbury , 1st Bn., K. Afr. Rif., Protectorate Force of East Africa (deceased)’, together with two related official communications, one from the War Office, dated 19 March 1917, and the other from Downing Street, dated 5 October 1920, and two of his published works, Songs out of Exile (T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1918), and The Great Plateau of Northern Nigeria, this co-authored with Hubert Sheane, (Edward Arniold, London, 1911), in green cloth with gilt titles and gilt vignette of a native to front cover; and a file of research.