Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Coopers Crew T. Stephens, Royal Navy

Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, dated reverse, no clasp (Cooprs. Crew, H.M.S. Inconstant); East and West Africa 1887-1900, 1 clasp, Gambia 1894 (Cooper’s Crew, H.M.S. Raleigh), the first with contact marks and edge bruising, the last with slightly bent suspension post and edge bruising, otherwise generally very fine (2) £300-£400

Provenance: Sterling Lee Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, 1 December 2004

Thomas Stephens was born in Plymouth in October 1852 and entered the Royal Navy as a Cooper in August 1878. His subsequent stints of active service comprised time aboard H.M.S. Inconstant during the Egypt operations of 1882, and in the Raleigh in the operations off, and on, the west coast of Africa in 1894, when he was landed with the Naval Brigade in Gambia for the punitive expedition against Chief Fodi Selah. Stephens was pensioned ashore in October 1898.