Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Uganda campaign medal awarded to Eleanor, Mrs. F. Rowling, Church Missionary Society

East and Central Africa 1897-99, 1 clasp, Uganda 1897-98 (Mrs. F. Rowling C.M.S. Uganda.) a somewhat later issue, good very fine £1,000-£1,400

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

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Eleanor Rowling, née Browne, was born around 1866, the eldest daughter of William Browne of Dublin. A governess, she entered ‘The Willows’ training school of the Church Missionary Society in 1893 and was accepted as a missionary for East Africa on 25 April 1894. Selected as a member of the first party of five Church Missionary Society women detailed to Uganda, she departed London for Mombasa on 18 May 1895 aboard the S.S. Guelph.

Directed to Mengo upon landing, Browne was present throughout the Mutiny when the Sudanese troops of the local militia mutinied and killed their British officers. After a tough anti-insurgency operation lasting a year the situation was finally brought under control; Browne later took advantage of this return to peace to marry a fellow missionary, The Reverend Frank Rowling of Leeds. According to the Leeds Mercury of 21 May 1898, the ceremony was conducted by the Venerable R. H. Walker at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Mengo, Uganda.

Spending their first two years of married life in England, the couple were both omitted from the original roll for the East and Central Africa Medal which lists 32 missionaries as awarded the medal. Returned to Uganda, it seems likely that they realised the errors and made claims whilst serving at Singo between 1900 and 1905, the medal to Eleanor Brown being issued in her married name. The Reverend Rowling continued his missionary work at Gazala from 1906 to 1910, later becoming Chaplain to the Mission at Entebbe. Appointed Secretary to the Church Missionary Society in Uganda from 1917, he retired as Honorary Canon in 1922. Later records note the couple retiring to Leeds, and it was here that Mrs Rowling died in 1940.

Sold with copied research containing a small photographic image of the recipient.