Orders, Decorations and Medals

British South Africa Company Medal 1890-97, reverse Rhodesia 1896, no clasp (25682 Lce. Corpl. W. Friend, 43 Co. R.E.), slack suspension claw and edge bruising, otherwise very fine and rare £350-400

Just 42 such Medals were awarded to the Royal Engineers.

William Richard Edward Friend was born in Sandhurst, Berkshire, the son of a Quarter-Master Sergeant and Engineer Clerk, and enlisted in the Royal Engineers as a boy recruit at Edinburgh in April 1891, aged 15 years. Appointed a Bugler in May of the following year, and advanced to Lance-Corporal in September 1895, he served in Rhodesia in 43rd Company, R.E. in July to September 1896, his C.O., Captain A. E. Haynes, being killed in action in the same period. Returning to the U.K. via a posting in Mauritius in October 1898, after being advanced to 2nd Corporal, Friend was discharged as medically unfit at Chatham in the following year, his condition partly being attributable ‘to the privatations he underwent whilst on active service ... He was on active service in Mashonaland for 84 days, during which time he had to sleep in the open air and often in wet clothes ... He was on field rations during this time, when he suffered from dysentery.’