Awards to Civilians from the Collection of John Tamplin

The important Central Africa medal awarded to Mr George Pilkington, Church Missionary Society, who was killed during the Sudanese uprising of 1897 in Uganda

Central Africa 1891-98, ring suspension, no clasp (G. L. Pilkington, C.M.S.) nearly very fine and rare £1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Awards to Civilians from the Collection of John Tamplin.

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George Lawrence Pilkington was born in Dublin on 4 June 1865, the third son of H. M. Pilkington, Q.C., D.L., J.P., of Tore, Westmeath.He was educated at Uppingham from 1877 to 1884, and then at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read Classics. It was at this time that he became interested in missionary work, and in 1889 he was approached by the Church Missionary Society to go to East Africa. He sailed in January 1890, and reached Uganda later that year.

Pilkington then began the work for which he was best suited, which was as translator and interpreter. He was the eventual author of a Luganda Primer, and of a Luganda-English-Luganda Vocabulary, and he translated the Bible into the Luganda tongue. Because of his linguistic abilities, he acted as interpreter on a number of official occasions. He took part as Chaplain, although not ordained, in the expedition to Unyoro in December 1893, was mentioned in the despatch of Colonel H. E. Colville, C.B., and eventually received the Central Africa Medal for this expedition.

After a spell in England in 1895-96, when he worked hard on his translation of the Bible into Luganda, he returned to East Africa in the summer of 1896. In May 1897, Pilkington wrote to the Church Missionary Society announcing his engagement to Miss Bertha Taylor, who was a member of the second party of lady missionaries to Uganda. Unhappily he did not live long enough to marry Miss Taylor.

Uganda was not a settled country in 1897, with great disaffection amongst the Sudanese troops stationed there, many of whom came out in open mutiny in September of that year. The mutineers marched to Fort Lubwa’s on Lake Victoria, where they were joined by the garrison and members of the Buganda tribe, bringing their numbers to some eight hundred. A scratch force of three hundred and forty Swahilis and a few Europeans and Sikhs, under Major J. R. L. MacDonald, arrived at Lubwa’s on 18 October and, after a severe engagement, the mutineers were invested in the fort. Pilkington arrived at the fort on October 23rd, just one of several members of the Church Missionary Society and other denominational societies, who gave valuable service to the British led force during the mutiny.

On 11 December 1897, Pilkington was in charge of a Baganda working party at the side of the fort at Lubwa’s, engaged in the cutting down of the surrounding plantations. The covering party under Captain Harrison consisted of 100 regulars with two maxim guns and 150 Swahilis and also included the force commander’s younger brother, Lieutenant Norman MacDonald. The mutineers made a desperate attack on the left flank with 150 men who crept up in the grass. The left flank of 100 Swahilis was driven back, until the Sikhs and East African Rifles beat off the attack after desperate fighting at close quarters, and the Swahilis rallied. Lieutenant Norman MacDonlad, whilst trying to rally his men in the most gallant manner, was shot and died almost instantaneously.

Almost at the same time Pilkington, on the right, had moved up into the fighting line with his servant Aloni to discuss certain details with Harrison, and here he, too, was mortally wounded and died shortly after. His servant had seen the approaching mutineers and fired. Then the attack began. One man aimed deliberately at Pilkington, who returned his fire. At last Pilkington was shot in the thigh, and a main artery was severed. He fell to the ground, mortally wounded. Aloni saw the change in his face, and said to him, “My master, you are dying. Death has come.” “Yes, my child,” said the dying man, ‘it is as you say.”

At the time of his death, Pilkington was 32. He was buried at Lubwa’s Fort, but was later moved to Mengo and buried again with full military honours on 18 March 1898. By his services at Fort Lubwa’s, he became entitled to the East and Central Africa medal, but, whilst his fiancée Bertha Taylor did receive it, Pilkington did not. He is mentioned in a great many works on East Africa, and, in 1898, Charles F. Harford-Battersby wrote a detailed biography of him entitled Pilkington of Uganda. The medal is accompanied by a great amount of additional research including an original copy of his biography and extensive photocopied extracts from many of the publications written by him or that mention him. For the medal awarded to his fiancée, Miss Bertha Taylor, see Lot 38.