Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The A.G.S. with ‘Aro 1901-1902’ clasp awarded to Mr J. Watt [C.M.G.], District Commissioner, Southern Nigeria, and later Senior Resident

Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Aro 1901-1902 (Dis: Commr J. Watt. Aro. F.F.) minor edge bruise, otherwise good very fine £500-£700

This lot is to be sold as part of a special collection, Medals from an Africa Collection.

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Approximately 11 A.G.S. with ‘Aro 1901-1902’ clasps awarded to District Commissioners.

James Watt was born in 1870, and educated at Dumfries Academy; Edinburgh University and Balliol College, Oxford. He was appointed Assistant District Commissioner Southern Nigeria in 1899, and also as Acting Governor of Old Calabar Goal, September - December 1900. Watt was attached for service with No. 2 Column of the Aro Field Force, 30 November 1901, and was appointed District Commissioner in 1902.

A number of Watt’s Reports whilst based at Agbor in 1906 exist in CO 520/37, including his residing over various murder cases including for Mr Crewe-Read (who had set fire to a Ju Ju house as punishment for local chiefs not sending enough labourers for official works). Watt is also mentioned in Life in Southern Nigeria: The Magic, Beliefs and Customs of the Ibibio Tribe by P. A. Talbot:

‘(Eket to Ibeno). The night I arrived, the wily Ekets celebrated the occasion by breaking into the factory. Later on in the scrimmage Oko lost his Idiong (ring) crown. I therefore had to retire as gracefully as I could. Later on we all joined up with the rest of the party and reached the factory safely. After a vigourous report from me, a column arrived, and afterwards dealt with these refractory savages and reduced them to order. But it took several separate expeditions to reduce these truculent savages to order; that is, in order that such as you, a District Commissioner in 1913 find them in, for they had a wonderful knack of bobbing up again and giving trouble after being beaten, and from a military point of view are the most “sporting tribe” imaginable. The various doings of the several Political Officer’s, and their “holdings up”, are they not written in the Official Intelligence Book? They include Crewe-Read (who was murdered), James Watt, who admitted to me once he thought his hour had come; and among this sporting tribe (who were no respecter of persons) sundry “Brass Hats” suffered a similar fate.’

Watt retired as Senior Resident in 1923 (C.M.G. the following year). In later life he resided at “Whiteleaf”, Montague Road, Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire and died in April 1945.

Sold with copied research.