Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A scarce Burma and Central Africa campaign pair awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel C. A. Edwards, Royal Welsh Fusiliers and Bengal Army, second-in-command of the Sikh Contingent in Central Africa where he died on active service, the youngest of his rank in the Army

India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Burma 1885-7 (Lieutt. C. A. Edwards, 1st Bn. R.W. Fus.); Central Africa 1891-98, 1 clasp, Central Africa 1894-98 (Major C. A. Edwards, 35th Bl. Infy.) the last with official corrections, otherwise good very fine (2) £1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Richard Magor Collection of Medals Relating to India and Africa, and other Fine Awards.

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Charles Augustus Edwards was born in London on 25 February 1864, and entered the Army as a Lieutenant in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers on 6 May 1885. He transferred to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in the same rank the following month and proceeded to India, where he served during the campaign in Burma 1886-87 (Medal with clasp). He was appointed to the Bengal Staff Corps on 18 October 1887, and posted as a Wing Officer to the 35th Sikh Regiment of Bengal Infantry on 26 September 1888. In 1892 he was selected as second-in-command of the Sikh Contingent for service in British Central Africa, where he commanded the expedition against Chiefs Nyassera and Mkanda, in the Mlanje area, from August to October 1893. Edwards next took part in the second expedition against Makanjira, from November 1893 to January 1894, a combined operation with H.M. Ships Pioneer and Adventure, the naval personnel receiving the clasp ‘Lake Nyassa’. Edwards and his Sikh’s, however, received the Central Africa Medal, with ring suspension and no clasp.

In September 1895 Edwards commanded the second expedition against Zarafi, and Chiefs Mponda, Matapwiri and Makanjira, which ended the following November, and the expedition against Mlozi, ‘Sultan of Nkonde’, and his associates Msalema and Kopakopa, in December 1895. In January 1896 he led an expedition against Tambola, the paramount Angoni chief. For these latter expeditions, Edwards qualified for the clasp to his Central Africa Medal, and in recognition of his important services against the slave-trading Arabs in the British Central Africa Protectorate he received promotion from Lieutenant to Lieutenant-Colonel in the extraordinarily short period of six months and eleven days. Edwards commanded the armed forces in British Central Africa until his untimely death, of blackwater fever, at Tomba on 10 May 1897. Lieutenant-Colonel Edwards was barely 33 at the time of his death and was probably by far the youngest officer of his rank in the Army.

His obituary in The Times noted that ‘his greatest achievement lay in his creation of a small native army, which, under English officers and Sikh non-commissioned officers, has proved such a potent arm for the defence of the new protectorate against Arab and Zulu aggressors. In this force slavers and former slaves were enrolled, and have since fought with unwavering courage and loyalty in the cause of the establishment of law and order in South Central Africa.’