Orders, Decorations and Medals

Four: Captain S. R. Jones, Royal Engineers, late Sapper, Electrical Engineers, and subsequently a prisoner of war in Singapore
Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, S.A. 1901, S.A. 1902 (8051 Sapr., Elec. Engrs. R.E.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.); Colonial Auxiliary Forces L.S. & G.C., G.V.R. (Lieut., Selangor Malayan Vol. Inf.) very fine or better (4) £180-200

Stanley Ramplen Jones was one of 100 volunteers from the Electrical Engineers R.E. Vols. who served in South Africa during the Boer War. Before leaving for South Africa, he was detailed as one of the soldiers which was to line the route in London for Queen Victoria’s funeral procession. He was convicted by General Court Martial in January 1902 for absence without leave and sentenced to 56 days hard labour, returning to duty in March 1902, and was discharged in September 1902.

In 1905 he was appointed as an Inspector of Mines in Malaya by the Colonial Office and spent the intervening years there before the outbreak of the Great War. In April 1915 he was commissioned as a Temporary Lieutenant into the Royal Engineers, and was soon to aid in forming the 179th Tunneling Company which came into being in July 1915. From this time he took an active part in all operations including the Somme offensive on the 1st July 1916, when they blew their mine on the central front, named “Y” Sap, which was packed with 40,000 lbs of ammonal. This mine made a crater 165 feet across and 70 feet deep, under which 52 German soldiers lay buried. Altogether seven large and eleven small mines were fire by the British at the start of the Somme offensive.

At the end of the war he was repatriated to Malaya by the Colonial Office and was an early recruit to the Volunteers, joining the Selangor Malayan Volunteer Infantry as a Lieutenant. He was awarded the Colonial Auxiliary Forces medal by Sir Hugh Clifford. Captain Jones was still living in Malaya at the outbreak of the Second World War and spent three and a half years as a P.O.W. in Singapore. He was still living in Malaya in July 1956 when he wrote an article for The Sapper, Regimental Journel of the Royal Engineers.