Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Seven: Lieutenant F. W. C. Morgans, Rhodesia Native Regiment, later East African Colonial Service and Staff Colonel, Gloucestersgire Regiment

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. F. W. C. Morgans.); 1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals; French Croix de Guerre 1914 1916, with bronze palm, the Great War medals and Croix de Guerre mounted as worn. Together with six shooting prizes, comprising two silver prize spoons, N.R.A. ‘B Squadron won by Cpl. F. W. C. Morgans 1913’, hallmarked, and Southern Rhodesia Rifle Association ‘Second Prize Augt. Compn. 1915. C.Sgt. F. W. Morgans’; three bronze S.R.V.E.D. shooting medals for Merchants Cup, Nicholson Cup and Rhodes Cup, all dated 1913 and ‘Won by F. W. Morgans’; and N.R.A. Rifle Clubs bronze medal, this unnamed, very fine or better (13) £400-600

M.I.D. London Gazette 25 September 1917 (Brigadier-General Edward Northey’s despatch of 10 March 1917).

Sold with original M.I.D. Certificate, dated 10 March 1917; three original Southern Rhodesia Volunteers (Eastern Division) proficiency certificates, for N.C.O’s, December 1913 and October 1915, and for Machine Gunnery, December 1915; and a photograph of the recipient taken in November 1916.

Francis Wiliam Croil Morgans was born in London on 21 March 1891, later settled in Cape Town and then went to Southern Rhodesia where, by 1913, he was serving in ‘B’ Squadron S.R. Volunteers. He was commissioned Lieutenant in the Rhodesia Native Regiment on 12 July 1916, and served with the Nyasaland-Rhodesia Force in Nyasaland Protectorate 1916-17 (Despatches - one of 29 M.I.D’s to the Rhodesia Native Regiment; Croix de Guerre - one of 5 such awards to R.N.R.).

Morgans afterwards joined the East African Colonial Service and returned to the U.K. in 1931. He served as a Staff Lieutenant-Colonel with the Gloucestershire Regiment during WWII. He died on 1 October 1958.

Most of the pictures for WWI in the book MASODJA, the history of the Rhodesian African Rifles and its forerunner, the Rhodesia Native Regiment by Alexandre Binda were taken from Lieutenant Morgans’ photo album.