Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Engineer Captain W. Dawson, Royal Navy, who gave evidence at the Court Martial investigating the loss of H.M.S. Sybille in Lambert’s Bay in January 1901 and was commended for his actions on the same occasion

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Asst. Engr., R.N., H.M.S. Sybille); 1914-15 Star (Eng. Commr., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Eng. Commr., R.N.), the first with a few edge nicks, generally very fine and better (4) £500-600

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Barrett J. Carr Collection of Boer War Medals.

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Collection

A total of 272 Queen’s South Africa Medals were awarded to the ship’s company of H.M.S. Sybille, 187 of them without clasp.

William Dawson was born at New Brompton, Kent in January 1876 and was appointed a probationary Engineer in the Royal Navy in July 1896. Advanced to Assistant Engineer in July 1897, he served in H.M.S. Sybille from October 1900 until she was wrecked in Lambert’s Bay on 16 January 1901, thereby becoming the only Royal Navy ship to be lost during the Boer War.

However, unlike four of his fellow officers who were severely reprimanded at the subsequent Court Martial held aboard the Monarch at Simonstown, Dawson was actually commended by his captain for removing and saving the Sybille’s gun-bedplates - he had, in fact, been asleep when the ship struck the reef, but immediately went below and ordered the watertight doors to be shut in the port and starboard engine rooms. Commendably prompt as these actions were, he still considered it dangerous for the engine room staff to remain because of the ship’s severe list to starboard and the resultant risk of the engines being lifted off their beds, in addition to which, there was a growing risk of steam escaping from fractured pipes. The subsequent order for the engine room staff to make for the upper deck was most likely, therefore, prompted by his swift and accurate report of such dangers to his senior - and may well have been responsible for avoiding loss of life.

By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he was serving in the rank of Engineer Commander as 1st Assistant to the Chief Engineer at Hong Kong Dockyard, where he had been employed since August 1911. In August 1915, however, he returned to sea with an appointment in the cruiser H.M.S. Blonde, in which ship he was commended for his services when she had to be refloated in August 1916. Then in January 1918, he removed to the Thunderer, in which battleship he remained employed until July 1919, when he returned to Hong Kong to resume his pre-war duties as 1st Assistant at the Dockyard.

Placed on the Retired List in the rank of Engineer Captain at his own request in January 1923, Dawson settled in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, where he died in July 1948; sold with a fine quality portrait photograph.