Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Ashantee 1873-74, 1 clasp, Coomassie (Sub. Lt. E. W. Huntingford, 1st. W.I. Regt. 1873-4) surname partially officially corrected, extremely fine £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Julian Johnson Collection.

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Provenance: Glendining’s, December 1989.

Edward Walter Huntingford was the son of the Reverend Edward Huntingford of Wimbledon. He was commissioned Sub-Lieutenant, 1st West India Regiment 14 May 1873, and served with the Regiment during the Ashantee War of 1873-74. He died of fever at Cape Coast Castle, 12 June 1874. The Regimental History gives the following:

‘On the return of the regiment from the bush, the fatigues and exposures of the campaign began to have their effect upon both officers and men. In ordinary years, in times of peace, Europeans who are seasoned to tropical service, can serve for twelve months in the deadly climate of West Africa without suffering much loss; but any unusual exposure of hardship is at once followed by an alarming increase of sickness. The 1st West India Regiment was the only corps which, after enduring all the fatigues of a campaign in the most deadly climate in the world, did not enjoy the advantage of a change to a healthier station. Added to this, the season proved to be unusually unhealthy, and that variety of African fever known as “bilious remittent,” which can only be distinguished from yellow fever by the fact of its not being contagious, broke out. Sub-Lieutenant L. Burke succumbed to this scourge on March 1st, Lieutenant T. Williams on April 9th, Lieutenant W. S. Elderton on May 10th, and Sub-Lieutenant E. W. Huntingford on June 12th, while Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell, Lieutenant Clough and Lieutenant Roper, being invalided, died on passage to England, and Captain Butler after arriving in England. In addition to these deaths, eight other officers were invalided, and out of twenty-six officers who were serving with the regiment on the 28th of February, only ten were left in West Africa on the 30th of June.’