The Matabele War medal awarded to A. H. F. Duncan, Chief Magistrate in Bulawayo in 1893, Acting Administrator prior to the arrival of Earl Grey in 1896 and saviour of the beleaguered residents at Abercorn

British South Africa Company Medal 1890-97, reverse Rhodesia 1896 (A. H. F. Duncan. Staff. B.F.F.) nearly extremely fine £800-1000

Provenance: Upfill-Brown Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, December 1991.

Andrew Henry Farrell Duncan was born in the Parish of St Paul’s, Port Adelaide, South Australia, on 31 May 1855, and served in the Royal Navy from 1868 to 1883 during which time, as a Lieutenant in H.M.S. Boadicea, he was with the Naval Brigade in Transvaal from 6 January, 1881, to 18 April, 1881. He qualified at the University of the Cape of Good Hope as a land surveyor in 1884, and was Surveyor General in British Bechuanaland from 1886 to 1891. Among others he surveyed and compiled plans of the townships Ekowa (1885-86) and Elliot (1885-1904) in the Transkei, and Vryburg (1897) in North West.

In September 1894 he was appointed the first Surveyor General of Rhodesia and was made responsible for surveys, the disposal of land and also a number of departments including the Post Office, Stores and Transport, Public Works, and Woods and Forests. He was Chief Magistrate in Bulawayo in 1893 and was a great personal friend of Dr. L. S. Jameson. He became a member of the Executive Council in 1894 and was gazetted Acting Administrator in the course of the same year.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Matabele rebellion in 1896 Duncan handed over his duties to Earl Grey, but not before he had organised the defence of Bulawayo, at that time seriously short of men, arms and munitions, owing to the Jameson Raid. He was a member of the Staff of the Bulawayo Field Force and accompanied Captain Hon. C. White's column as far as Charter. From there, and with only one companion who became seriously ill on the journey, Duncan rode to Fort Salisbury through the enemy lines, travelling by night, part of the way by foot, as he was obliged to support the sick man on his horse. The latter repeatedly urged Duncan to leave him and save himself, but in spite of every difficulty, he succeeded in bringing him safely into Salisbury. The next day news came in that men in Abercorn were in grave danger. The district was some 70 miles distant in the worst part of the enemy's country. Duncan the same evening organised a patrol to relieve the white residents at Abercorn. In an incredibly short space of time, accompanied by 40 of the Natal Troop, and 25 volunteers from the Salisbury Field Force, he left the laager en route for Abercorn, where in due course he and his contingent safely arrived.

Altogether about 17 people had sought refuge at Abercorn where they had been besieged for 23 days, repeatedly attacked by overwhelming numbers of rebellious natives, and as a result two men were killed and five were wounded.

Duncan was presented with a magnificent illuminated scroll, now in The National Army Museum at Chelsea, by members of the Salisbury Field Force who accompanied him to Abercorn, bearing both their signatures and also those of some of the rescued men. The testimonial sums up with the following sentence:

“When this unfortunate rebellion is at an end and we can calmly review its history, your brave exploit will stand out as a conspicuous event, destined to remain one of the most cherished memories of the people of Rhodesia.”

Duncan volunteered for service, on the outbreak of the South African War in 1899, and served with the Royal Engineers and the Intelligence Department. Shortly after the British assumed control of the Orange Free State, Duncan supervised the compilation of the Orange River Colony Degree Sheet Series of maps, published in 1901. The 25 maps were based on the farm diagrams available in the office of the surveyor-general of the territory. They were revised after 1902 by the surveyor-general's staff and remained in use for many years.

In 1906 Duncan lodged a complaint against the surveyor-general of the Orange River Colony. That same year he was listed as a government land surveyor admitted to practise in the Transvaal Colony and was associated with the Swaziland Corporation. During 1906 he surveyed a chain of triangles in Swaziland. His survey was later incorporated in the primary triangulation along the northern border of Swaziland, carried out by the Trigonometrical Survey of the Union of South Africa between 1920 and 1936. In 1928 he received a Crown grant of a farm at Hartebeestfontein, Pretoria.

He died at Pretoria on 22nd September, 1931, at the age of 77 years.

Sold with copied group photograph of Duncan with the B.F.F. staff officers