Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part II)

Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Somaliland 1902-04 (7495 Pte. J. Waters, 4th Rl. Rifle Bde.) very fine and rare £200-250

Just three officers and 30 N.C.Os and men of the Rifle Brigade were awarded the Africa General Service 1902-56 with ‘Somaliland 1902-04’ clasp, 7495 Pte. J. Waters among them, the whole having been drawn from the 3rd and 4th Battalions of the regiment and formed into a single section of No. 2 Company, British Mounted Infantry (Bengal Company).

James Waters was born in Liverpool and enlisted in the Rifle Brigade at Warrington in January 1900, aged 19 years, direct from the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment. Granted a ‘Somaliland War Gratuity under Army Order 186 of 1904’ for his subsequent services in the expedition against the “Mad Mullah” between July 1903 and June 1904, he was discharged in January 1912; for an entertaining history of the Rifle Brigade’s activities in Somaliland, see Colour-Sergeant A. E. Ayers’ account published in the Rifle Brigade Chronicle in 1904.