Five: Stoker 1st Class J. Fairman, Royal Navy

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 1 clasp, Natal (283145 Sto., H.M.S. Terrible); China 1900, 1 clasp, Taku Forts (283145 Sto., H.M.S. Whiting); 1914-15 Star (283145 Sto. 1, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (283145 Sto. 1, R.N.), the first two official duplicate issues, probably of the Great War era, minor edge bruising, generally very fine (5) £350-400

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Barrett J. Carr Collection of Boer War Medals.

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Collection

273 one-clasp Queen’s South Africa Medals were awarded to the ship’s company of H.M.S. Terrible, around 230 of them for “Natal”.

Just 64 China 1900 Medals were awarded to the ship’s company of H.M.S. Whiting, 55 of them with single “Taku Forts” clasp.

John Fairman was born at Halling, Kent in January 1877 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in August 1896. Advanced to Stoker in July 1897, he served in H.M.S. Terrible from September 1899 to May 1900, when he qualified for his Queen’s South Africa Medal and “Natal” clasp, and again, briefly, in April-May 1901, prior to joining the battleship Glory off China.

Subsequently loaned to the destroyer Whiting, he went on to qualify for his China Medal with “Taku Forts” (ADM 171/55 confirms). To the latter ship - and the Fame - fell the unenviable task of capturing four Chinese destroyers, lying between Taku and Tongku, which were threatening the Allied attack on the forts. Commanded respectively by Lieutenants R. Keyes, R.N. (afterwards Admiral of the Fleet) and C. MacKenzie, R.N., each ship also towed into action a whaler manned by a dozen “Bluejackets”, all of them volunteers - it was one of the last occasions boarding parties went into action with the cutlass. In his subsequent report to the Rear-Admiral, China Station, dated 27 June 1900, Keyes stated:

‘After a slight resistance and the exchange of a few shots, the crews were driven overboard or below hatches; there were a few killed and wounded; our casualties were nil. No damage was done to the prizes, but the Fame’s bow was slightly bent when we closed to board, and the Whiting was struck by a projectile about 4 or 5 inches abreast a coal bunker. This was evidently fired from a mud battery on the bend between Taku and Tongku, which fired in all about 30 shots at us, none of the others striking, though several coming very close ... There was a good deal of sniping from the dockyard so I directed all cables of the prizes to be slipped and proceeded to tow them up to Tongku.’

Fairman deserted at Felixstowe in December 1903, while serving in the Audacious, an act that no doubt resulted in the forfeiture of his two campaign awards. But he rejoined as a “hostilities only” man in August 1914, when he was rated Stoker 1st Class and thereafter would appear to have served in the destroyer Mallard for the duration of the War. He was demobilised in April 1919.