Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare C.M.G. group of five awarded to Colonel Sir Raleigh Grey, ‘who was in the front rank of those who rendered yeoman service in establishing the new Colony of Rhodesia’: the recipient of a uniquely named B.S.A.C. Medal to the 6th Dragoons for the Matabele War of 1893, he went on to command the Bechuanaland Border Police’s detachment in the famous “Jameson Raid” - in which he was wounded - and 2nd Brigade, Rhodesian Field Force in the Boer War, in addition to receiving the K.B.E. for his protracated service as a Member of the Legislative Council of Rhodesia

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G. Companion’s breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with swivel-ring suspension and riband buckle; British South Africa Company Medal 1890-97, reverse Matabeleland 1893, no clasp (Captn. R. Grey, 6th Dragns.); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Rhodesia, Orange Free State (Major Raleigh Grey, C.M.G., Rhod. F.F.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Major R. Grey, 6/Drgn. Gds.); Coronation 1911, enamel slightly chipped on the second and third, otherwise generally good very fine (5) £2500-3000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals relating to the Boer War formed by two brothers.

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C.M.G. London Gazette 1 January 1896.

Raleigh Grey was born in March 1860, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Grey of Northumberland and great grandson of the 1st Earl Grey, and was educated at Durham School and Brasenose College, Oxford.

Commissioned in the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons in April 1881 he served as a Captain in the Zululand operations of 1888, when he was honourably mentioned; so, too, in the Matabele War of 1893, on this occasion in command of a column of British Bechuanaland Border Police, for, as described in his Times obituary, he had come under the spell of Cecil Rhodes:

‘With Colonel Pennefather, the first commandant of the Company’s Police, and Major Forbes, well remembered as magistrate of Salisbury, Grey was one of a group of officers of the Inniskilling Dragoons, then stationed in Natal, who came under the inspiration of Cecil Rhodes and gave the new Colony much of the English tradition and tone which has characterised it ever since. Essentially Grey had the colonising temperament. For a man of his adventurous disposition and practical capacity for affairs, Rhodesia, with its vast yet untested possibilities, offered an ideal field.’

Grey’s tenure as Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of the Bechuanaland Border Police ended in December 1895, when he joined the famous Jameson raiders on their mission into Kruger’s Transvaal Republic. In command of a 122-strong contingent of his men, with two 7-pounder guns and two Maxims, Grey and his men, in company with numerous Matabeleland and Mashonaland Mounted Police, were confronted by a force of Boers outside Krugersdorp.

In the ensuing fight Grey was wounded in the foot and, in common with his fellow raiders, was taken prisoner - the announcement of the award of his C.M.G., for his services as ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of the British Bechuanaland Border Police’, had appeared in The London Gazette the previous day.

One of the 14 officers who subsequently appeared with Jameson at Bow Street in June 1896, he was one the five subsequently committed for trial at the Court of the Queen’s Bench in July, when he was sentenced to five months imprisonment, without hard labour.

On the outbreak of hostilities in South Africa, Grey was appointed to the command of a Brigade of Australians and New Zealanders in the Rhodesian Field Force, in which capacity he served with distinction, gaining a brace of “mentions”, one of them from General Babington for the actions fought in March 1901 - ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Grey’s fine leading has much contributed to the success of the operations; he has at all times displayed marked ability as a leader of men.’

A contemporary account of these actions states:

‘On 23 March 1901, Colonel Raleigh Grey, who was for many years an officer of the Inniskillings, and whose name came into such prominence in the famous “Jameson Raid”, gained a signal victory in the Magaliesberg. The New Zealanders and Bushmen, under Colonel Grey, were forming an advance guard to General Babington, who was engaged against General De la Rey. Emerging from the pass, near Haarbeestfontein, they beheld the Boer army moving across a plain below. Lieutenant-Colonel Grey at once gave the order to charge. With wild cheers the New Zealanders and Bushmen raced down on their foes. The Boers attempted to unlimber and bring their guns into action, but were overwhelmed, and the whole force fled terrified before the furious charge. Over 50 Boers were picked up after the charge, killed or wounded. 100 were taken prisoner; also two field guns, one pom-pom, six Maxims and 56 wagons.’

Of Grey’s subsequent career, his Times obituary states:

‘After his retirement from the Regular Army in 1904 Grey’s association with Rhodesian life was close and constant, first as Commandant of the Volunteers and thereafter as a leading figure in politics, mining and farming. In the early days his company, the Rhodesia Lands Limited, of which he was managing director, obtained handsome returns from the famous “Jumbo” mine, long since worked out, and is now among the leading agricultural concerns in the Colony. Sir Raleigh also farmed his own land, and was a rancher and producer of maize, tobacco, oranges and cotton.

In 1922 Rhodesia, in emancipating itself finally from the tutelage of the Company, had to make the fateful decision whether it should throw in its lot with the Union of South Africa or set up for itself as a separate self-governing Colony. Here Grey, as a strong Union man all through, was sharply at variance with the mass of popular opinion as represented by the majority of the elected members in the Legislative Council. With feeling running high the issue was fought out in the election of 1923. Grey was defeated at Salisbury, his own constituency, by Mr. W. M. Leggate, who became Minister of Agriculture in Sir Charles Coghlan’s Ministry, the first to take office under the new Constitution.

So closely had Grey been identified with the rejected policy that it seemed Rhodesia no longer held for him a place in its counsels. And realizing, or assuming, that the sense of the country was against him, he did not stand at the election in the following year when Sir Charles Coghlan, the constitutional question having been finally closed, dissolved Parliament in order to take the opinion of country upon various domestic issues. Although not abating his opinion that the young Colony had set its foot on the wrong road, Grey, as a good Rhodesian, took its decision in excellent part. He turned to the care of his extensive interests with redoubled energy, and “carried on” – a dignified figure in the country whose prosperity he had done no little to establish and in which by dint of his admirable qualities he had achieved his own outstanding success. He was made a K.B.E. in 1919, being already a C.M.G. and C.V.O.’

Grey, who was awarded his C.V.O. in November 1910, in his capacity as C.O. of the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers at the opening of the First Parliament of the Union of South Africa, died in January 1936.