The important Boer War campaign medal awarded to Sir Somerset French, K.C.M.G., Postmaster-General of Cape Colony, Knighted for his services in supervising the Military and Postal Telegraph Services in the Cape Colony during the South African War

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Sir S. French, K.C.M.G., G.P.O. Staff) toned, extremely fine £1200-1500

Somerset Richard French was born in 1848, the son of the late Robert French. After being educated at a private school, he entered the Money Order Department of the General Post Office in London in 1866, but was transferred to the Secretary’s Department in 1869, and in the next year assisted in the transfer of telegraphs to the State. He was in charge of the Intelligence and Special Arrangements Branch of the Telegraph Service from 1870 to 1880, and in 1878 he went to Cyprus with an expeditionary force under Lieutenant-General Sir Garnet Wolseley to organize a postal and telegraph service in that island. He was appointed Secretary and Accountant-General of the Post Office of Cape Colony in 1880, Controller of the Savings Bank in 1884, and Postmaster-General of the Colony in 1892. Whilst acting as Secretary, he introduced the Postal Savings Bank system in the Colony. His next appointment was Postmaster-General of British Bechuanaland, and from 1893-97 he was manager of the Rhodesian Telegraph Service, and of the African Trans-Continental Telegraph Company. He was awarded the C.M.G. in 1896 in recognition of these services. He represented the Cape Colony, Natal, and Rhodesia at the Universal Postal Union Congresses at Wahington in 1897, and Rome in 1906, and was largely responsible for the introduction of the Imperial Penny Postage scheme.

He supervised the Military and Postal Telegraph Services in the Cape Colony during the South African War, in connection with which he received the special thanks of the Imperial Government and Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, and was created K.C.M.G. in 1901, in recognition of these services. In 1907 Sir Thomas Fuller retired from the post of Agent-General for Cape Colony in London, and Sir Somerset French succeeded him. He married in 1893, Josephine, only daughter of Beauval Murphy, R.N. There were two children, a daughter who died during the early part of the War, and a son, who was killed in action in 1918. Sir Somerset French died in Sussex on 11 May 1929.

See Lot 1111 for the medals to his son, Lieutenant V. J. S. French, Irish Guards, who was killed in action in October 1918.