The Brian Kieran Collection

Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Gambia (3493 Pte. R. Johnson, 3rd W. India Regt.), nearly very fine £300-350

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Brian Kieran Collection.

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Sold with a photocopied obituary taken from The Gleaner, circa 1972:

‘Mr. Richard Benjamin Johnson, Jamaica’s oldest ex-serviceman, died on Sunday at the age of 105. He would have been 106 on June 6, the anniversary of D-Day. Mr. Johnson had been living at Curphey Home, Manchester since 1970, after a long life which spanned careers as a coachman, soldier, prison warder and Gleaner vendor. Between 1898 and 1912 he saw service with the first West India Regiment serving in the Matabele campaign of the Boer War in South Africa and in Sierra Leone and Gambia where he helped put down tribal uprisings. He was wounded in the Boer War and was decorated with the African General Service Medal and the Special Campaign Medal (Gambian clasp). Born in Chapelton on June 6, 1867, Mr. Johnson married and had a daughter. His wife and daughter predeceased him, his daughter having died in 1960 at the age of 55. Too old for active service in the First World War, he served at home as a Sergeant-Instructor with the British West India Regiment from 1915 to 1918. After his discharge from the army he became a warder at the General Penitentiary for some years and after that he was a vendor of the Gleaner newspaper for some time. The Jamaica Legion feted him on his 100th birthday with a party at Curphey Place at which presentations were made on behalf of the Jamaica Defence Force and a letter of congratulations was read from the then Prime Minister. Funeral rites will be held for him at the Garrison Church, Up Park Camp, on Tuesday at 4.30 p.m. He will be buried in the Garrison Cemetery.’