Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Central Africa 1891-98, no clasp, ring suspension (Volunteer E. J. Glave) one or two edge bruises, otherwise good very fine £800-1000

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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Edward Glave, a noted traveller and journalist of his day, served under the famous explorer Henry Stanley, by whom he was greatly admired, when the latter was setting up the Congo Free State. Among other achievements, he rendered valuable service to the rearguard of Stanley’s celebrated expedition to relieve Emin Pasha, organising stores and armaments, and assessing potential sites for forts and trading posts.

Sometime thereafter he took leave in England - and served as Executive Officer and artist of the Leslie Expedition in Alaska between 1890-91 - but Africa was never far from his mind, and on winning an appointment as a special correspondent of The Century Magazine, a New York publication, he returned to his former stamping ground. Thus we find him serving as a volunteer in the expedition against the Chirodzulu in December 1893, when he earned the Central Africa Medal for his part in the operations in Upper Shire (Liwondi) and Mkanda.

And then he embarked on his final journey, an attempt to cross the African continent from East to West, obtaining information on the slave trade and following a route specially sketched out for him by Stanley. It was during this remarkable journey that he discovered the site where Livingtone’s heart was buried. But while waiting for a boat to take him from Matabi to the West Coast, he died of fever.

In 1893 Glave had published Six Years of Adventure in Congo-Land, the glowing introduction having being written by Stanley:

‘Mr. E. J. Glave, the author of this book, is one of those young Englishmen who, in 1883, were sent to me for service on the Congo, by the Chief of the Bureau of the International Association of Brussels. I soon recognized in Mr. Glave those qualities for which I was eagerly searching in the applicants for service, and which were absolutely necessary in a pioneer. He was tall, strong and of vigorous constitution, with a face marked by earnestness and resolve, and when I began questioning him I was agreeably surprised to find his sentiments equal to his appearance. His period of probation at Stanley Pool was therefore short. I was in need of a chief for a new station that was to be built at Lukolela - a place about three hundred miles above the Pool, and I selected him ...’

And on learning of Glave’s death in June 1895, Stanley felt bound to write in equally praiseworthy terms to his mother, ending his moving eulogy thus:

‘ ... Madam, at this supreme moment of sadness, pray take this comfort to your heart. Your boy - so honourable and brave has fallen in no mean cause. His fate has been that of a beloved disciple whose zeal was great, and whose strength was such as it was he gave without stint to the service of Christ. Through no error, but through physical exhaustion has he died. He had struggled alone across a continent. He turned neither to the right or to the left, but held on

undauntedly to the one sole purpose for which he had been sent, which was as noble as any that can be given to man. I look on that visit of his to the spot where Livingstone’s heart lay buried as a visit to his Master’s shrine. He must have suffered by the way thence to the sea. Nature may often have been on the point of yielding but look you what efforts he made to reach the Ocean. And fever such as that which has taken him is the last of many. The rapture and glow of action is over - and it catches him as his nerves relax from the strain - and he passes away. Madam, it is of such men that heroes come. Your son was a young hero. Had he lived he would have been greater. But we both wish heartily that had he lived to reach England that might say to him “Well done” ...’

Note: Many of Glave’s private papers were auctioned by Sotheby’s, London in December 1976.