Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Lushai 1889-92 (5460 Pte. W. Lemon. 4th. Bn. Kings Ryl. Rifles.) an officially re-engraved medal as issued to a Warren Hastings survivor, small die flaw to obverse, otherwise good very fine £280-£320

William Henry Lemon was born in Birmingham in 1871 and attested there for the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on 19 October 1889, having previously served in the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He served with the 4th Battalion in India and Burma from 18 September 1891, taking part in the expedition against the Lushai insurgents in 1892. Posted to the 1st Battalion on 7 October 1892, he subsequently served as part of the Chitral Relief Force, where he was present at the action of the Malakand Pass, 3 April 1895 (entitled to the India General Service Medal 1895-1902 with clasp Relief of Chitral 1895). On 10 December 1896 he sailed from Bombay to Cape Town in the troopship Warren Hastings, and arrived in South Africa on 28 December 1896. Half of the Battalion was dispatched for garrison duties at Wynburg, whilst the other half of the Battalion (Comprising A, C, G, and H companies, including Lemon) subsequently re-embarked in the Warren Hastings at Cape Town on 6 January 1897, bound for Mauritius.

On board the Warren Hastings were 526 members of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 510 members of the 2nd Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment, and 25 members of the 2nd Battalion Middlesex Regimen, together with 20 women, 10 children, and 253 crew, totalling 1,244 people. A good passage was had until the morning of 13 January, when the glass fell and the wind shifted to the south. Despite reduced visibility there was no cause for concern and that night the troops went untroubled to bed. At about 2.20 am on 14 January, a violent shudder was felt throughout the ship, as the Warren Hastings struck a rock off the coast of Réunion. Orders were given for the K.R.R.C. to fall in on the port side and the York and Lancasters on the starboard side. Through the torrential rain the ship’s officers perceived that the vessel was aground and that it was possible to disembark by ropes on to the rocky coast. At 4.15 am the ship began to heel to starboard. Twenty minutes later the electric lights went out. Thus by 5.00 am those men on the starboard side, some in total darkness, were standing knee deep in water. The list gradually increased until the captain himself thought the ship would turn over. Nevertheless the discipline for which the British soldier is famed prevailed, and the disembarkation was accomplished without a single fatality. The only lives lost during the whole episode were those of two natives who ran amok and jumped overboard. One officer present later wrote ‘Personally I look upon the whole business as one of the most creditable things to the British Army which has ever occurred, and without invidious comparison quite as creditable as the Birkenhead, for in the latter, if we are to believe the pictures, the men were at least all on deck, whilst on the Warren Hastings they were between decks, and quite unable to see what was going on.’ After a brief stay on Réunion, Lemon arrived in Mauritius with the rest of his battalion onboard the S.S. Lalpoora on 18 January 1897.

Lemon returned home on 23 June 1897, and transferred to the Army reserve two days later. Rejoining the Colours on 24 April 1899, he served with the 3rd Battalion in South Africa during the Boer War from 4 November 1899 to 6 September 1902, and was present at operations in the Cape Colony and the Transvaal, and at the actions at Tugela Heights, the Relief of Ladysmith, and at Laing’s Nek (entitled to a Queen’s South Africa Medal with five clasps, and the King’s South Africa Medal with two clasps). He was appointed Lance-Corporal on 10 May 1900, and was discharged on 9 September 1902, after 12 years and 326 days’ service.

Sold with copied service papers and medal roll extracts.