Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Ashantee 1873-74, 1 clasp, Coomassie (Lieut: W. Cole, 1st W.I. Regt. 1873-4) suspension claw tightened, good very fine £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Julian Johnson Collection.

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Provenance: ex Payne and Lovell Collections.

William Cole was commissioned Ensign, 1st West India Regiment, in August 1864. He arrived with men of the Battalion in Jamaica immediately after the suppression of the Jamaica Rebellion of 1865. He advanced to Lieutenant in February 1869, and Lieutenant (Instructor of Musketry) in August 1871. He served with the Regiment during the Ashantee War of 1873-74. The Regimental History gives the following:

‘On the return of the regiment from the bush, the fatigues and exposures of the campaign began to have their effect upon both officers and men. In ordinary years, in times of peace, Europeans who are seasoned to tropical service, can serve for twelve months in the deadly climate of West Africa without suffering much loss; but any unusual exposure of hardship is at once followed by an alarming increase of sickness. The 1st West India Regiment was the only corps which, after enduring all the fatigues of a campaign in the most deadly climate in the world, did not enjoy the advantage of a change to a healthier station. Added to this, the season proved to be unusually unhealthy, and that variety of African fever known as “bilious remittent,” which can only be distinguished from yellow fever by the fact of its not being contagious, broke out. Sub-Lieutenant L. Burke succumbed to this scourge on March 1st, Lieutenant T. Williams on April 9th, Lieutenant W. S. Elderton on May 10th, and Sub-Lieutenant E. W. Huntingford on June 12th, while Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell, Lieutenant Clough and Lieutenant Roper, being invalided, died on passage to England, and Captain Butler after arriving in England. In addition to these deaths, eight other officers were invalided, and out of twenty-six officers who were serving with the regiment on the 28th of February, only ten were left in West Africa on the 30th of June....

During its three years’ tour of West African service the regiment had suffered very heavy loss amongst the officers. In addition to the eight deaths that occurred in 1874, directly after the Ashanti war, Captain W. Cole [promoted in June 1875] died in Ireland of fever contracted on the Gold Coast; Lieutenant-Colonel Strachan and Sub-Lieutenant Turner in England; and Sub-Lieutenants S. B. Orr and G. V. Harrison at Sierra Leone in 1876.’