Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 1 clasp, Defence of Ladysmith (Mid. C. R. Sharp, R.N. H.M.S. Powerful) impressed naming, good very fine and rare £900-1200

Seventeen officers served with Lambton’s Naval Brigade for the Defence of Ladysmith. Predominantly picked from the crew of H.M.S. Powerful, there were also two young midshipmen from the Terrible, Edward George Chichester and Charles Reynolds Sharp, both aged sixteen. Sharp was mentioned in despatches and specially promoted to Lieutenant for services in South Africa, 15 October 1903.

‘From 1 November to 5 December, 1899, 3,264 Boer shells were recorded as falling in Ladysmith, killing thirty-one civilians and wounding 145. Ladysmith Town Hall, which was being used as a hospital, was badly damaged, despite the Red Cross flag flying over it... Young Midshipman Sharp managed to purloin one of the stone balls that fell from the Town Hall clock tower following its rude assault from “Long Tom”. It is indicative of the lad’s youthful determination that he even managed to carry the unweildy object home, where it sits to this day on a special plinth in a lovely Cornish garden, with a plaque beneath it proclaiming its historical significance. It is believed, on the basis of information received from a reliable South African informant, that the civic authorities in Ladysmith would appreciate its return.’

Upon their return to England, the officers and men of Powerful’s Ladysmith Brigade were invited to an inspection by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in May 1900. ‘Midshipman Sharp had been the youngest and most junior officer present. He was therefore the last to be presented and stood quite close to the Queen while waiting his turn. Recalling the experience, in the mid-1960s at over eighty years of age, he said that for the rest of his life he had always remembered her voice very clearly. Indeed, in those days of pre-radio, he was one of the few commoners to have heard it.’

The above extracts have been taken from Field Gun Jack versus the Boers, The Royal Navy in South Africa 1899-1900, by Tony Bridgland (Leo Cooper, 1998) who, in his Postscript, states: ‘Midshipman Sharp went on to command one of the Royal Navy’s earliest submarines - the historic Holland 2.’