Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Jebu 1892 campaign medal awarded to Mr George Stallard, Principal Judicial Officer for Lagos, and later Chief Justice of Sierra Leone

East and West Africa 1887-1900, 1 clasp, 1892 (Mr. G. Stallard.) officially engraved naming, good very fine £600-£800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from an Africa Collection.

View
Collection

J. Tamplin Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, September 2003.

George Stallard was born in January 1856, the fifth son of Josiah Stallard, of “The Blanquettes”, Worcester. He was educated at Rossall, and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and London University, where he read law. Stallard took the LL.B. degree at Cambridge in 1878, and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in the following year. He went out to West Africa as private secretary to the Governor of Lagos, Sir Alfred Maloney, and was appointed Queen’s Advocate of Lagos in September 1887. Stallard was appointed a District Commissioner at Lagos in February 1889, and as the principal judicial officer he accompanied the expedition in fighting the Jebu, 12 - 25 May 1892 (Mentioned in Despatches and medal).

The following additional detail is given in Yoruba History & Historians by Professor G. O. Oguntomism:

‘In July 1892 [Governor] Carter sent his principal judicial officer, George Stallard to Ijebu Ode to obtain from the Awujale [King], the ruler of the Ijebu Kingdom, an agreement to cede locations on the north bank of the Lagos Lagoon to the British Crown. Not surprisingly then, Stallard obtained all he requested from the Awujale even beyond the instructions in his brief, for he secured additional territorial concessions”.

In 1897 Stallard was appointed Deputy Governor of the Colony of Lagos, and in May of the same year he was appointed Chief Justice of Sierra Leone. On his retirement in 1907 he was offered a knighthood which, however, he declined. In later life Stallard resided at 39 Oxford Mansions, Oxford Circus, and additionally spent time fishing at North Tawton, Devon. He died in August 1912.

Sold with further research including an original obituary from The Times, and a photographic image of recipient.