Special Collections

Sold on 10 May 2017

1 part

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A Fine Collection of Medals Relating to Rhodesia and South Africa

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Lot

№ 340

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10 May 2017

Hammer Price:
£2,400

British South Africa Company Medal 1890-97, reverse undated, 2 clasps, Mashonaland 1890, Rhodesia 1896 (Tpr. Smith, R.C. - B.S.A.C.P.) official correction to second initial, good very fine £1800-2200

55 medals issued with these two clasps.

Colonel A. S. Hickman, in
Men Who Made Rhodesia, wrote:

‘I feel I must pay a personal tribute to this Police Pioneer for his friendship over many years and the great help he gave me in this research. I therefore quote from the July, 1957,
Outpost, in which I wrote his obituary. It contains all the salient points of his career, and there are also his personal narratives to refer to, but his life was so full of incident that it is impossible to do full justice to it. I had the privilege, too, of giving some outline of his story over the Federal Broadcasting Service shortly after his death.
55 medals issued with these two clasps.

Richard Bell Carruthers-Smith, affectionally known as “Jock”, died on the night of 3rd June, 1957, at Gwelo Hospital. He was nearly 86 years of age, being born on 17th June, 1871, at Amos House (now St. Ninian’s College), Moffat, Scotland. His first venture abroad was to Canada, where he was farming for nearly two years until he came over to South Africa (by way of Scotland) on hearing of Rhodes’ venture.

He was accepted for the British South Africa Company's Police at Kimberley on 15th May, 1890, the youngest member to be attested in the Police at that time. He went to Macloutsie for training and served as a member of “D” Troop under Captain E. C. Chamley-Turner. His troop garrisoned Fort Tuli when the Pioneer Corps set out for Mashonaland in July, 1890.

At Fort Tuli, shortly before the expedition, there was played the first Rugby match ever to be staged on what is now Rhodesian soil (if it can be so described). Teams of Police and Pioneer Corps met in the sandy bed of the Shashi River and played to exhaustion, wearing their heavy issue boots. Jock told me it was the hardest game in which he ever took part. Before that there had been two matches at Macloutsie, in Bechuanaland, between the Company’s Police and the Bechuanaland Border Police who were camped nearby. There were no less than nine British internationals in the two sides, and amongst those who played for the Company’s Police were the brothers Van der Byl from Capetown. The first match was won by the Company’s Police, when Jock scored the only try in the game. The B.B.P. won the return match.

In December, 1890, “D” Troop moved from Fort Tuli up the Pioneer Road towards Fort Victoria, which they reached after many hardships due to heavy rains and flooded rivers. Then they marched on to Fort Charter, arriving early in February, 1891, with 84 men out of a 100 down with fever and riding on the wagons. Here Jock and three others volunteered to be dispatch-riders and were sent to a post-station called Makowrie, about 40 miles from Fort Victoria, where they kept going in spite of exposure, short rations, sick horses and men and, of course, the vile weather. Later Jock was one of a group of Police with Captain Chamley-Turner who from the walls of the Zimbabwe ruins had the unique experience of observing a tribal fight between the two factions of Makaranga.

He took his discharge from the Company’s Police on 22nd December, 1891, and went to Salisbury, where he was in charge of “D” Troop soda-water factory, a commercial concern financed by old members of his troop. This was not to his taste, so he returned to Fort Victoria and entered the employ of the Mashonaland Agency Ltd., which had a camp at Fern Spruit at the bottom of the Providential Pass. With this mining and trading concern Jock stayed until the Matabele Raids on the Fort Victoria district in July, 1893. He stayed on as long as he could and was then ordered into laager in Fort Victoria.

He did not serve in the Matabele War because someone had to remain to look after the Company’s interests. After a short visit to Salisbury in 1894, he set off for Matabeleland in a light spring wagon with 12 oxen, and for the whole journey of 180 miles to Gwelo did not meet a soul, nor did he see anyone between Gwelo and Bulawayo, but at the Shangani battlefield there were bones and skulls lying everywhere.

On arrival at old Bulawayo (near the present Sauerstown) he camped inadvertently in a small cemetery. He and his friends were the first men to move over to the new Bulawayo and set up house - a lean to - almost opposite the Standard Bank. He was a foundation member of the Bulawayo Club in 1894 and was later elected a life member.

In 1896 he went to the United Kingdom for a holiday, but as soon as he heard of the outbreak of the Matabele Rebellion, booked his passage back to South Africa. He travelled in the same ship as General Sir Frederick Carrington and his staff, and on arrival in Bulawayo joined Grey’s Scouts, which later reached Salisbury by forced marches. With this unit he served in the patrol commanded by Captain the Hon. Charles White, Chief Commissioner of Police, which rode to the relief of the settlers invested by rebels at Hartley Hill in July, 1896. I had the honour of accompanying him to this site in 1956, the first time he had seen the fort since he and his comrades charged up to it nearly 60 years before.

Towards the end of 1897, after repeated bouts of fever, he left Rhodesia on medical advice, and in 1898 took part in the Klondyke gold rush. For a time he was partner to Major Fred Burnham, the famous American scout who had served in the Matabele War. He returned home to marry Miss Alice Newsham, a nursing sister who had trained at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and his wife accompanied him back to the Klondyke, where their two sons were born under pioneering conditions; one of his daughters was born in British Columbia, the two youngest in Rhodesia.

With his family he returned to Rhodesia in 1903. At one time he was manager of the New Bonsor Mine at Selukwe. In later years his second son managed the same mine for 17 years, from 1932 to 1949. Jock had the deserved reputation of being a most able farmer at Selukwe, Gwanda, and Hartley. In 1927 he was managing the Southill Ranch at Gwanda for the Gwelo Lands and Minerals Co.; later his farm, Ardlui, at Hartley, was a showplace. He retired to Selukwe, where his wife died in 1951. Since then he had been staying with his sons and daughters at Selukwe, Bulawayo, and Hartley, but mainly with Mrs E. R. Etheridge at Stockwell, near Hartley.

He was a life member of the Bulawayo Agricultural Society, and in 1935 had been given the Freedom of the City of Salisbury, where he hoisted the flag at the Occupation Day ceremony in Cecil Square on the 12th September, 1955. During his last days at Gwelo Hospital his only literature was a copy of
The Outpost; he was a staunch supporter of the B.S.A. Police magazine, to which he had contributed on a number of occasions... He was a man indeed.’

Sold with a copy of Carruthers-Smith’s typescript ‘Reminiscences’, 63pp with additional copied obituary notices inserted, and other research.