Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

East and West Africa 1887-1900, edge impressed Mwele 1895, 1 clasp, Juba River 1893 (J. W. Tritton, Esqre.), with riband buckle, officially corrected, good very fine and rare £1400-1800

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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Captain J. W. Tritton served in the Imperial British East Africa Company’s Kenia, a shallow-draft stern-wheel steamer which broke down in the Juba River at Gobwen. Both he, and a District Officer, Mr. K. MacDougall, were rescued by Lieutenant P. V. Lewes and his Naval Brigade of 40 men drawn from H.M.S. Blanche.

Magor states:

‘She [the Kenia] had been built to operate on the Tana River but this proved an unsuitable waterway. She was equipped with a novel means of defence against native canoes in the shape of a perforated tube which ran round the vessel underneath the gunwale, connected by a pipe to the main boiler and a cloud of steam could be made to envelope the steamer at will. A more practical defence in the form of a Q.F. Hotchkiss gun was fitted forward of the promenade deck.

Having repaired the donkey feed pipe, Lieutenant Lewes [no doubt assisted by Tritton and MacDougall] put the ship in a state of defence by means of breastworks of iron plates, cut-up canoes, sand bags and bales of piece goods, with two maxim and two Hotchkiss guns mounted for armament.

They proceeded up river and shelled and destroyed Magarada and Majawen, where the Somals, armed with sniders replied to the Kenia’s fire, but were defeated and fled into the bush.

The naval contingent then returned to their ships leaving the Kenia moored by three anchors in the middle of the Juba River, in the charge of two friendly chiefs.’

Lieutenant Lewes was awarded the D.S.O.

Neither Tritton or MacDougall appear on the ‘Mwele’ or ‘Juba River 1893’ rolls, but the above described Medal is clearly an officially impressed issue of the period, and, interestingly, so is that to MacDougall (see Lot 415). Having accompanied Lieutenant Lewes and his Bluejackets in the Kenia following their rescue, and indeed witnessed the bombardment of two of the Somals’ villages, there seems no doubt that both men were entitled to this rare Medal and clasp.