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

An interesting inter-war C.B.E., K.P.M. group of three awarded to Inspector-General C. W. Duncan, Nigeria Police, late British Guiana, Mauritius and Malta Police

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, C.B.E. (Civil) Commander’s 1st type neck badge, silver-gilt and enamels, in its Garrard & Co., London case of issue; King’s Police Medal, G.V.R., 1st issue (Claude Woodruff Duncan, Insp. Gen., Southern Prov. Nigeria Pol.); Jubilee 1935, together with ‘Martinez Challenge Shield’ prize award, the reverse engraved, ‘1909, Won by British Guiana, Dist. Insp. C. Duncan, B.G. Police’, silver, 38mm., generally extremely fine (4) £400-500

C.B.E. London Gazette 3 June 1930.

K.P.M. London Gazette 1 January 1920.

Claude Woodruff Duncan was originally appointed a Clark in the Government Secretary’s Office in British Guiana in May 1899, but transferred to the local police as a Sub-Inspector in March 1901, in which year he returned to the U.K. to attend the School of Musketry at Hythe - he would also return home in 1905 to attend the School of Instruction at Chelsea Barracks. Back in British Guiana, he was appointed an Acting Country Inspector in January 1908, passed in Hindi in 1909, and, interestingly, led special expeditions to the Venezuela frontier at Wenamu in late 1910 and the summer of 1911.

Joining the Mauritius Police in the rank of Deputy Inspector-General in September 1912, Duncan was advanced to Acting Inspector-General, and Superintendent of Prisons, in November 1914. He next transferred to Malta in the summer of 1916, where he served as Commissioner of Police and, from October 1917, also as Inspector of Prisons, his K.P.M. being gazetted shortly after his subsequent transferral to the Nigeria Police in 1919 - indeed he actually received the award at a special parade of the 4th Nigeria Regiment and Police on the race course at Lagos. Duncan remained similarly employed as Inspector-General of Police in Nigeria (Southern Provinces), and as Director of Prisons, until his retirement in 1935, when he settled at Crail, Fife, where he died in July 1945.