Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Acting Chief Petty Officer W. C. Browning, Royal Navy

East and West Africa, 1 clasp, 1891-2 (W. C. Browning, A.B., H.M.S. Racer); Queen’s South Africa, 6 clasps, Cape Colony, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, Belfast (136960 P-O: W. C. Browning, H.M.S. Monarch); Naval Long Service and Good Conduct, E.VII.R. (W. C. Browning, Act. C.P.O., H.M.S. Medea), contact wear and edge bruising, otherwise generally about very fine and rare (3) £700-£900

Douglas-Morris Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, February 1997.

Only 63 six-clasp Queen’s South Africa medals to the Royal Navy, including 50 to Monarch.

Acting Chief Petty Officer William Charles Browning was born at Crewkerne, Somerset, in January 1871 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class aboard H.M.S. Impregnable, aged 15 years. Advanced to Boy 1st Class in April 1887, to Ordinary Seaman in January 1889 and to Leading Seaman in February 1890, he joined H.M.S. Racer in April 1891. In this latter ship he was landed with the Naval Brigade sent to punish Chief Fodeh Cabbah. Further promoted to Petty Officer 2nd Class in November 1895 and to Petty Officer 1st Class in March 1897, he next saw active service in H.M.S. Monarch, which ship he joined in July of the latter year. Landed for service with the Naval Brigade in the Boer War, he saw extensive service which qualified him for a six-clasp medal. Awarded his L.S. and G.C. medal and advanced to Acting Chief Petty Officer in 1904, Browning was invalided ashore in February 1909, suffering from ‘mental deficiency’. A closing statement on his Service Record states that his name was put forward for financial assistance from the Royal Patriotic Fund.

Sold with copied record of service.