The Burma campaign medal awarded to Commander Ray Fenton, for service aboard the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company’s steamer Colonel A. Fytch

India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Burma 1885-7 (Comr. Ray Fenton I.F. Co’s Str. “Col. A. Fytche”) together with companion miniature dress medal, good very fine (2) £300-350

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The John Goddard Collection of Important Naval Medals and Nelson Letters.

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Provenance: Captain K. J. Douglas-Morris Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, February 1997.

The Colonel Fytche was built and engined by A. & J. Inglis of Glasgow, in 1867. Her measurements were length 145 feet, width 28 feet, draught 10 feet, gross tonnage 276 tonnes. She was disposed of in 1897.

During the military operations in Burma 1885-87 the Colonel Fytche was Commanded by Commander Ray Fenton and used as a hospital ship. A photograph of Colonel Fytche appears in the book ‘The Irrawaddy Flotilla Company’, Maritime Monographs & Reports No. 7, published by the National Martime Museum, London 1973.

Captain Ray Fenton took his ship Thooreah out to sea via the Schwelaung River and along the coast to the entrance of the Hlaing River and then took a Pilot to China Bakir, this being the first time that such a passage had been attempted. He retired in 1902.