Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Ashanti Star 1896 (24168 Sap. H. Bleach, R.E.) engraved in the correct style, cleaned to a bright finish, otherwise very fine and rare £300-400

The Royal Engineers supplied two parties for this campaign, one of them, commanded by Captain R. S. Curtis, comprising a Lieutenant and 21 N.C.Os and men from 1st Telegraph Battalion at Aldershot, and 11 N.C.Os and men from 2nd Telegraph Battalion in London (Ashanti 1895-96 by Ian McInnes and Mark Fraser refers).

The same source also states:

‘One of the unusual exhibits in the Royal Signals Museum at Blandford Camp, Dorset is the throne-chair of King Prempeh I of Ashanti. How it came to be in possession of the Museum makes an interesting story:

Captain Reginald S. Curtis, R.E., a Subaltern and 32 men of the Telegraph Bn. Royal Engineers, were part of the Royal Engineer contingent and it was this detachment that was to supply the communications of the expedition. While the main dress for the Royal Engineers on the expedition was to be the scarlet uniform, the dress authorised for the Telegraph Battalion was given in that Battalion’s orders as follows, ‘Helmet (stained brown), Puggaree (blue), Serge Frock (blue), Trousers (with red stripe, canvas leggings), Carbine M.H. (Martini-Henry), sword bayonet (rifle pattern)’. On 15 December, Captain Curtis, Lieutenant D. S. MacInnes, Sergeants Low and Shaw and 15 rank and file set out with as much cable as the porters could carry, as well as fourteen days’ rations, personal kit and ammunition. The first objective was to march to Prahsu and to lay line along the route. The first fifteen miles took the party through hills covered in small bushes which then gave way to cotton trees, palms, bamboo and giant ferns all intermingled to form a steaming hot jungle. The party reached Mansu, some 34 miles from the coast, by 18 December and at this point, Captain Curtis and Sergeant Low with his party moved on laying cable at a rate of 10 to 12 miles a day through the jungle. Lieutenant MacInnes, with a second party, followed replacing the cable with an air-line (overhead cable) at a rate of 3 miles a day. The first party reached Prahsu on 22 December and were now 71 miles from the coast. On 30 December, Captain Curtis was ordered to extend the cable across the River Prah and on to the capital, Kumassi. This was made possible as the cable used during the first part of the operation was recovered as the air-line was being laid.

The cable detachment was generally in advance of the main party and was protected by the Hausas, the local levy, which was commanded by Major R. S. S. Baden-Powell (who was to become Lord Baden-Powell, the Chief Scout). Captain Curtis was reported by “B-P” as working alongside his men, stripped of jacket, trying to maintain a steady progress of 2 miles an hour through the jungle and intense heat, laying the cable which was crooked, or hung, over branches with crook sticks. On 5 January 1896, Captain Curtis contracted fever and was evacuated back to Cape Coast Castle leaving Sergeant Low in command of the cable detachment. Low became short of cable but fortunately found some that had, presumably, been dumped by Lieutenant Jekyll, R.E., when he and his line party had provided communications for the expedition against King Kofi Kalkali in 1873-74.

On 17 January, Kumassi was eventually reached. The King, who had not expected such a rapid advance of the British force, had no time to muster his own force and so decided to make the meeting a ceremonial one and gathered together his nobles, who were accompanied by their stool bearers, musicians and dancers, and assembled at the area that had formerly been used for human sacrifice. One report has it that as many as 200 slaves had been killed at one ‘performance’. The scene was then set, with King Prempeh I sitting on his throne in the sacrificial grove, bedecked in his black and gold tiara. On his neck and arms were large gold beads and over his head a large velvet umbrella was held. He sat amidst a crowd of his officials, his own sword-bearers, court criers, etc., awaiting the arrival of the scarlet-clad British infantry. To his, and his supporters’ astonishment, three men in blue with four natives carrying a drum of cable came out of the undergrowth. This was Sergeant James Lindsey Low and his two sappers who, before the startled crowd, marched across the ground, erected the blue and white signal office flag, and proceeded to set up their instrument in the grove. Sergeant Low then signalled ‘through’ to Captain Curtis, who was by that time back at Cape Coast Castle. The telegraph sent read ‘To Capt. Curtis, RE, Kumassi cable 11.30 this is first wire. (signed) Sergt. Low’.

The General Officer Commanding the expedition presented the captured ‘Throne’ to Captain Curtis in ‘recognition of the hard work done by the section, and further as a memento of the unique fact that the enemy’s capital was entered and the news practically known in England before the town was captured by fighting troops.’

Whether Sapper Bleach was one of the two men to have accompanied Sergeant Low in that extraordinary entrance into Kumassi remains unknown. But if future events were to serve as a testament to his keenness and fighting efficiency, then it is not improbable, for, as recorded in The London Gazette of 27 September 1901, he was awarded a D.C.M. for his bravery as a 2nd Corporal with the 1st Telegraph Division, R.E. in the defence of Ladysmith.