The Uganda campaign medals awarded to Mr J. P. Wilson, Sub-Commissioner in the Uganda Protectorate

East and Central Africa 1897-99, 1 clasp, Uganda 1897-98 (Sub. Com. J. P. Wilson, Uganda Prot.) officially impressed naming; together with a second identical medal (Mr. J. P. Wilson) naming officially engraved in the usual style, good very fine and a scarce double issue (2) £500-600

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Awards to Civilians from the Collection of John Tamplin.

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John Plowright Wilson was born in about 1867, the son of John Thomas Wilson, Goods Superintendent of the North British Railway Company, of Pollockshields, Glasgow. He joined the Imperial British East Africa Company on 20 December 1890, and reached Uganda in December 1891 where he was placed in charge of stores at Kampala. In the Colonial Office List, and other sources, Wilson is shown as having been awarded the Imperial British East Africa Company’s Medal for services during the Ugandan civil war of 1891-92, and is confirmed on the roll for that medal.

Wilson was at Kampala in March 1893, on the arrival of Sir Gerald Portal who engaged him as Storekeeper and Accountant for the new Uganda Government service on the eve of taking over from the I.B.E.A. Company. He did good work under Captain J. R. L. MacDonald in the Muhammadan insurrection led by Selim Bey in June 1893; a good account of these troubles is given in Soldiering and Surveying in British East Africa 1891-94 by MacDonald. His name was brought to the notice of the Foreign Office in a despatch from MacDonald to Sir Gerald Portal, dated Kampala, 26 June 1893, and forwarded to the Earl of Rosebery and published in a Blue Book, Africa No. 2 (1894), which was presented to both Houses of Parliament in March 1894.

Wilson was at Fort Raymond, Mityana, in October 1893, but being detailed as Storekeeper at Entebbe, did not advance with the force against Kabarega. He was subsequently sent to Toro as officer-in-charge, and, escorted by Major G. Cunningham, reached Fort George at the Katwe Salt Lake on 19 August 1894. Wilson was still at Toro in April 1895 when he received news of the execution, at Lindi in the Congo Free State, on 15 January 1895, of Charles Henry Stokes, a British Subject engaged in trading with natives and Arabs, who had been charged with selling arms, powder and caps. This subject is dealt with at length in another Blue Book, Africa No. 8 (1896), in ‘Papers relating to the Execution of Mr. Stokes in the Congo State’, and presented to both Houses of Parliament in August 1896.

Wilson was promoted Collector in August 1895. He was in charge of Naivasha station, then in Uganda, when the Sudanese mutiny broke out in September 1897, and received the medal for his services in Uganda in 1897-98. He was appointed a Sub-Commissioner in July 1899, and retired from the Uganda service on a pension in January 1906. Wilson died at the Balavil Hotel, Newtonmore, on 19 July 1911, the cause of death being given as brain injury, the result of being shot with a revolver. Sold with further research including photocopied extracts from a number of books on Uganda that mention him.