Hong Kong Plague 1894, silver issue (Corporal J. Mears, R.E.) very fine and scarce £1,200-£1,500

Four officers and 33 N.C.O’s and men of the 25th Fortress Company, Royal Engineers, assisted during the plague in Hong Kong.

John Mears was born in the Parish of Newton St Cyres, near Exeter, Devon, and enlisted into the Royal Engineers at Bristol on 29 September 1894, aged 22, a carpenter by trade. He was appointed Lance-Corporal in August 1889 and was promoted to 2nd Corporal in February 1891, and Corporal in March 1894. He served overseas at Halifax, Nova Scotia from November 1885 to October 1887; at Gibraltar from October 1887 to September 1893; at Malta from September to December 1893; and at Hong Kong from 26 December 1893 until he purchased his discharge on 20 November 1894. He was a prison warder in Hong Kong from 1894 to 1899, when he joined the Shanghai Municipal Police but was dismissed from that service in November 1901 for insubordination. He is afterwards recorded as being a member of the Police in Jiujiang, China until 1909.

Sold with copied discharge papers and other research.