Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant-Colonel C. H. Kekwich, York & Lancaster Regiment: one of just seven officers of his regiment to be awarded the B.S.A.C. Medal, he was afterwards present aboard the ill-fated “Warren Hastings”

British South Africa Company Medal 1890-97, reverse Rhodesia 1896, no clasp (Captn. C. H. Kekewich, 2/Y. & Lancr. Regt.); Special Constabulary Long Service, G.V.R., coinage bust (Cecil H. Kekewick), note surname spelling on the last, the first with edge bruising, otherwise very fine, the second rather better (2) £700-800

Cecil Henry Kekwich was born in London in November 1866, the son of the Hon. Sir Arthur Kekwich, a Justice of the Supreme Court; his cousin, Robert, would gain fame as the Commanding Officer of Troops during the siege of Kimberley, during which period he came into conflict with Cecil Rhodes.

Educated at Eton and the R.M.C. Sandhurst, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the York & Lancaster Regiment and served in the 2nd Battalion in Bermuda, Halifax and the West Indies in the period 1885-91, prior to embarking for South Africa in March of the latter year.

Having then been advanced to Captain, he commanded the Mounted Infantry Company of the 2nd Battalion in Rhodesia from May to December 1896, in which period his detachment served alongside the 7th Hussars and West Riding Regiment, operating from Mafeking towards Tuli and Victoria Farm, some ten miles south of Bulawayo, near the Matoppo Hills. He led a reconnaissance to the west of the Hills in mid-August and afterwards served at Bulawayo as part of the patrol covering the Shangani River district (Medal).

In January 1897, Kekewich and the 2nd Battalion were embarked in the ill-fated R.I.M.S. Warren Hastings, which ship famously came to grief on the rocks off the Island of Reunion on the 14th. His Battalion C.O., Major Kirkpatrick later reported:

‘I gave the order for the men to fall in, which they did in the most calm and orderly manner; this would have been about 2.25 a.m. I afterwards received and issued two orders: (1) That the troops, who were at first mixed, having fallen in as they stood, should be separated, the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on the port side, and the York & Lancaster Regiment on the starboard side; and (2) that the troops should be arranged by companies. Both of these orders were carried out, the companies being arranged in alphabetical order from bow to stern ... I think the discipline was perfect, the men being as clam and cool as on parade, even when the electric light failed for a short time and candles had to be lit ... on arrival at the rocks I endeavoured to muster my detachment, and after some little time was able to report all accounted for ... ’

Kekewich served as Station Officer at Agra and Naini Tal 1897-99; as Brigade Major, Camp of Exercise, 1900 and as Commandant of the Mounted Infantry School at Fatehargh 1901-04. He was placed on the Reserve of Officers in May 1911.

Recalled in the Great War, he served as a Railway Transport Officer at Southampton, in which capacity he was awarded the British War Medal 1914-20. Afterwards a member of the Special Constabulary, he died in 1947; sold with copied research.