Orders, Decorations and Medals

The rare C.M.G., Sudan service group awarded to Colonel W. S. Sparkes Pasha, Egyptian Army, late Welsh Regiment, the first governor of the Bahr el Ghazal Province

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s breast badge, gold and enamels, complete with gold ribbon buckle in its Garrard & Co case of issue, enamel flaked on one reverse arm; Queen’s Sudan 1896-98 (Capt. W. S. Sparkes, E.A.); Khedive’s Sudan 1896-1908, 7 clasps, Firket, Hafir, Sudan 1897, The Atbara, Khartoum, Sudan 1899, Bahr-el-Ghazal 1900-02, unnamed as issued; Order of Osmanieh, 4th Class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamels, enamel mostly crudely repaired; together with presentation silver cigarette case inscribed ‘Bahr-el-Ghazal Expedition 1900-1902’ and with finely enamelled flags of the United Kingdom and Turkey, hallmarked Birmingham 1902, the reverse of the case engraved with five facsimile signatures of the officers and also the names of two N.C.Os. who took part, unless otherwise described, nearly extremely fine (5) £3000-3500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The collection of Medals formed by the Late Clive Nowell.

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William Spottiswoode Sparkes was born on 4 July 1862, and was first commissioned into the Welsh Regiment on 22 October 1881, being promoted to Captain in November 1888. In 1894 he was seconded to the Egyptian Army and fought in command of the 4th Battalion Egyptian Infantry in the Dongola and Nile campaigns, his horse being shot four times at Firket. He was mentioned in despatches for Dongola (London Gazette 3 November 1896) and for the Atbara and Khartoum (London Gazette 30 September 1898).

In 1899 Sparkes was appointed governor of Fashoda, and in 1900 was promoted Colonel in the British Army and appointed as the first Governor of the Bahr-el-Ghazal Province under the Condominium. Arriving at Mushra al-Raq in December 1900, he raised the British and Egyptian flags at Wau early in 1902 and established posts at Wau, Tonj, Rumbek, and Shambé. With his health broken by continued service in such harsh country Colonel Sparkes died on 4 July 1906.

Extracts from a diary kept by Sparkes during his service in the Sudan are quoted in Omdurman by Philip Ziegler (1973). A detailed article on the Bahr-el-Ghazal cigarette cases, which Sparkes had made for the seven British officer and two N.C.Os. who accompanied him in 1900, was published in the O.M.R.S. Journal for Spring 1974.