Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. Including a superb collection of medals to the King’s German Legion, Police Medals from the Collection of John Tamplin and a small collection of medals to the Irish Guards

The Ashanti 1896 C.M.G. group of five awarded to Colonel A. J. Price, West Yorkshire Regiment

The Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., neck badge, silver-gilt and enamels, in Garrard & Co case of issue; Ashanti Star 1896, the reverse engraved in the usual regimental style (Lt. Col., 2 W. Yorks. R.); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 1 clasp, Cape Colony (Colonel, C.M.G., W. York. Rgt.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Col., C.M.G., West York. Rgt.); Jubilee 1897, silver, privately named (Lt. Col., 2nd West York. Regiment) very fine or better (5) £1500-1800

Ex Flatow Collection (Spink, November 1998) when sold with a C.M.G. converted breast badge.

Adolphus James Price was born at Dum Dum, India, on 4 September 1846, and first commissioned into the Ceylon Rifles in 1866. When that unit was disbanded in 1873, he transferred into the 49th (Berkshire) Regiment where he remained until exchanging into the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment in November 1884. Promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in March 1895, he and his Battalion were on their way home from India when they received orders at Suez to proceed instead to Gibraltar where an expeditionary force was being assembled to seal with mounting problems in the West African Kingdom of Ashanti. Once the force had been prepared and kitted out, it embarked on what was to prove a relatively bloodless campaign; the Ashanti capital, Kumassi, was taken in January 1896 and the twin objectives of ousting King Prempeh and establishing a British Protectorate were achieved with minimal losses. Whilst field casualties were very light, however, all those who marched through the thick jungle to reach Kumassi suffered greatly from fever and similar privations and, by the time they returned to the coast, most men felt that the expedition had stretched them to the limit.

The principal casualty from sickness was none other than Colonel H.R.H. Prince Henry of Battenberg, the husband of Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter Beatrice and rumoured to have been the Queen’s favourite son-in-law. It has been suggested that the Prince’s death occasioned the award of the quasi-memorial Ashanti Star in place of another clasp to the extant East & West Africa medal, but whether this was the case or not, the issue of the unnamed stars provoked considerable disappointment amongst all those who had participated in the affair. Colonel Price felt particularly strongly about the matter, so much so that he arranged for an engraver to name up all of his Battalion’s stars and then settled the account entirely out of his own pocket.

Colonel Price retired in March 1899 only to be recalled from the Reserve of Officers that October upon the outbreak of the Boer War. Given command of the 4th (Militia) Battalion during operations in Cape Colony from March to June 1900, he was then appointed Acting Governor and O.C. Troops on St Helena from 18 July, the Island being already in use as a Boer prisoner-of-war installation under guard by the 3rd Battalion Manchester Regiment and a local Volunteer unit. Still stationed there in August 1902, it fell to Price to send the Island’s Loyal Greetings to the new King and Queen Alexandra on the occasion of their Coronation. For his services in the Boer War he was mentioned in despatches London Gazette 10 September 1901. Colonel price retired in 1903 and died on 5 October 1937. His funeral was attended by a particularly distinguished gathering of the Military headed by the recently appointed Field Marshal, Sir Cyril Deverell, G.C.B., Chief of the Imperial General Staff and later to become Colonel of the Regiment who, as a young subaltern, had accompanied Price on the Ashanti Expedition.