Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Gunner C. Chapman, Royal Garrison Artillery

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (75352 Gnr: C. Chapman, 15th W.D., R.G.A.) top left-hand lug repaired; King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (75352 Gnr: C. Chapman. R.G.A.); China 1900, no clasp (75352 Gnr: C. Chapman. R.G.A.) contact marks overall, generally good fine or better, scarce combination of awards (3) £500-£600

Provenance: B. J. Carr Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, December 2007.

Just 35 men of the British Army received the Queen’s South Africa, China 1900 and King’s South Africa Medals, all of them members of the Royal Garrison Artillery; see the article A Slow Boat to China - and Back Again, and related roll, by Lt. Col. A. M. Macfarlane (O.M.R.S. Journal, Autumn 1993, pp. 198-200).

Charles Chapman was born in Pulborough, Sussex in December 1865 and attested for the Royal Artillery at Worthing in October 1889. Having then served at assorted U.K. stations in the intervening period, he was transferred to the Army Reserve in October 1896, but with the advent of hostilities in South Africa he was recalled and posted to 15th (Siege Train) Company, R.G.A., in which unit he served from November 1899 until April 1901, including a period of employment in the China operations in the right half of his Company from July 1900 to March 1901. He was then posted to 14th Company and thence to No. 68 Company, with whom he qualified for the King’s South Africa Medal and two clasps, prior to being discharged back home in August 1902; a 1914-15 Trio is known to the same recipient, who died in January 1945.