Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War ‘East Africa operations’ M.B.E. group of five awarded to Captain R. E. Clegg, South African Service Corps, late Nyasaland Volunteer Reserve

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Military) Member’s 1st type, breast badge, silver, hallmarks for London ‘1919’; Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Nyasaland 1915 (R. E. Clegg. Nyasaland V. Res.); 1914-15 Star (Lt. R. E. Clegg S.A.S.C.); British War and Bilingual Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Capt. R. E. Clegg.) generally good very fine (5) £800-£1,000

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

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Dix Noonan Webb, April 2003.

M.B.E. London Gazette 31 January 1919 (East Africa).

M.I.D. London Gazette 31 January 1919:

‘For excellent services between December 1917 and July 1918.’

Robert Edward Clegg ‘who was on holiday in the Union of South Africa died on the 18th January 1950. It was known that he had been under treatment for some time but it was not realised in Nyasaland that his ailment was so serious; the news came as a great shock to his many friends in the Protectorate. He was sixty-nine years of age.

Robert Edward Clegg was born at Douglas (Isle of Man) and his parents emigrated to Natal four years later. After leaving school he adopted banking as his career and came to Nyasaland a few years before World War I as manager of the Standard Bank of South Africa, Blantyre Branch. When hostilities began he joined up and served with supplies, attaining the rank of captain and being awarded the M.B.E. (Military). He resigned from the bank and took up planting in the Cholo district after the armistice.

In 1922 he joined the staff of the Blantyre & East African Company Ltd. as manager of the company’s Zomba estates, with headquarters at Malosa. He acted as general manager of the company during the absence of Mr William Tait Bovie, and was appointed agent to the Native Tobacco Board, a new post then created by the Nyasaland Government.

Leaving the Native Tobacco Board later, he bought cotton on behalf of a firm in Belgium and when the African Export Corporation Ltd. began business in Nyasaland in 1935 he became local manager for the organisation. At the time of his death he was a Director of the Corporation.’ (The Nyasaland Journal, January 1950 refers)

Sold with copied research.