Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

China 1900, 1 clasp, Relief of Pekin (C. Cunningham Lg. Sean., H.M.S. Orlando); together with a miniature dress medal, full-size medal with edge bruising, fine (2) £280-320

Charles William Cunningham was born in Portsmouth on 30 October 1877. In 1892 he was apprenticed to the White Star Line on board the sailing ship Patriarch to Australia, outward bound via Cape of Good Hope and homeward bound via Cape Horn. He joined the Royal Navy as a Boy at Portsmouth on 2 March 1893, his trade being given as ‘Florist’. He was advanced to Boy 1st Class in March 1894. He was promoted to Ordinary Seaman in October 1895 when on H.M.S. Alexandria, to Able Seaman in December 1896 when on H.M.S. Active and Leading Seaman in April 1899 when on H.M.S. Orlando. As such, he was serving on H.M.S. Orlando at the time of the Boxer Rebellion and was landed for the relief of Pekin and the operations at Tientsin. Cunningham left the Royal Navy by purchase at Woosung in April 1901 to take up the post as a Diver in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service and was initially attached to the river police. In May 1902 he transferred to Revenue Cruisers as a Gunner serving on board R.C. Chuentian and R.C. Pingching until August 1907 when he was appointed to the Post of Magazine Keeper at the newly built magazine at Ma Lu Chiao, Pootung. Whilst in charge of the magazine, he was responsible for the care of ammunition from the gunboats of the Yangtse flotilla when they had been refitting at Shanghai. Cunningham held this post until September 1930 when he was invalided out of the service due to dynamite poisoning - caused by protracted contact with this and other explosives. During the State of Emergency in 1932 he served with the emergency postal services in Shanghai as well as the Transport Section of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. He retired from the latter in 1935 with the rank of Orderly Room Quarter Master Sergeant. Remaining in China during the Second World War, he was later interned by the Japanese at Yangchow Camp B. Surviving the war but in poor health, he returned to the U.K., where he died in 1955.

With one portrait and three other group photographs of C. W. Cunningham; parchment certificate of service in the Royal Navy; copy of certificate of service; Admiralty letter dated 29 May 1903 informing Cunningham of his share (£2.16s.0d) of the special gratuity for China 1900 - it was addressed to ‘Mr C. W. Cunningham, Gunner, R.C. Chuentian, c/o Kowloon Customs, Hong Kong’; letter from the Rear Admiral/Senior Naval Officer, Yangtse, H.M.S. Bee, at Hankow, dated 1 September 1930, thanking Mr C. W. Cunningham for his excellent work with the Chinese Maritime Customs in charge of their Explosives Magazine at Maluchiao, regretting his being forced to retire because of health problems. With modern typescript, written by his grandson, giving the above service details.

For other family medals see lots 188 and 524.