Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family Group:

Army L.S. & G.C., V.R., 3rd issue, small letter reverse (122. S.Sgt. F. Lane. R: Mil: Coll:) minor edge nicks, about extremely fine

The M.S.M. to Staff Sergeant F. J. Lane, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, a survivor of the wreck of the Warren Hastings, 14 January 1897
Meritorious Service Medal, G.V.R., 3rd issue (S. Sjt. F. Lane. K.R.R.C.) extremely fine (2) £200-300

Frederick James Lane was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in 1873, and attested there for the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on 27 October 1891, having previously served in the 4th (Militia) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment. Posted to the 3rd Battalion on 21 March 1892, he transferred to the 2nd Battalion on 17 September of that year, and went with the Regiment to South Africa on 16 July 1896. Transferring to the 1st Battalion on 1 January 1897, he embarked with the Battalion at Cape Town on 6 January 1897, bound for Mauritius in the troopship Warren Hastings. On board were 526 members of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 510 members of the 2nd Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment, and 25 members of the 2nd Battalion Middlesex Regimen, together with 20 women, 10 children, and 253 crew, totalling 1,244 people. A good passage was had until the morning of 13 January, when the glass fell and the wind shifted to the south. Despite reduced visibility there was no cause for concern and that night the troops went untroubled to bed. At about 2.20 am on 14 January, a violent shudder was felt throughout the ship, as the Warren Hastings struck a rock off the coast of Réunion. Orders were given for the K.R.R.C. to fall in on the port side and the York and Lancasters on the starboard side. Through the torrential rain the ship’s officers perceived that the vessel was aground and that it was possible to disembark by ropes on to the rocky coast. At 4.15 am the ship began to heel to starboard. Twenty minutes later the electric lights went out. Thus by 5.00 am those men on the starboard side, some in total darkness, were standing knee deep in water. The list gradually increased until the captain himself thought the ship would turn over. Nevertheless the discipline for which the British soldier is famed prevailed, and the disembarkation was accomplished without a single fatality. The only lives lost during the whole episode were those of two natives who ran amok and jumped overboard. One officer present later wrote ‘Personally I look upon the whole business as one of the most creditable things to the British Army which has ever occurred, and without invidious comparison quite as creditable as the Birkenhead, for in the latter, if we are to believe the pictures, the men were at least all on deck, whilst on the Warren Hastings they were between decks, and quite unable to see what was going on.’ After a brief stay on Réunion, Lane arrived in Mauritius with the rest of his battalion onboard the S.S. Lalpoora on 18 January 1897.

Transferring to the Army Reserve on 8 July 1899, Lane was recalled to the Colours on the outbreak of the Boer War, and served with the 3rd Battalion in South Africa from 4 November 1899, where was present at operations in the Cape Colony, the action at Tugela Heights, 14-27 February 1900, and at the Relief of Ladysmith (entitled to a Queen’s South Africa Medal with three clasps), before returning home on 19 October 1900. Transferring once more to the Army Reserve, on 20 April 1902, he was discharged on 26 October 1903, after 12 years with the Colours. He subsequently served as a Sergeant Major Instructor in a Public School Officer Training Corps, and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal, together with an annuity, per Army Order 10 of 1933. He died in Bournemouth on 13 February 1950.