Three: Chief Ship’s Cook E. Batchelor, Royal Navy

Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Somaliland 1902-04 (Ch. Cook, H.M.S. Fox); British War Medal 1914-20 (141355 Ch. Sh. Ck., R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., V.R., narrow suspension (Sh. Cook, H.M.S. Triumph), impressed naming, the first and last with contact marks and edge bruising, otherwise generally very fine or better (3) £160-180

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals for Services at Sea from the Collection of the Late Oliver Stirling Lee.

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Edwin Batchelor was born at Storrington, Sussex in December 1868 and entered the Royal Navy as an Acting Cook’s Mate in April 1887.

As verified by an accompanying copied newspaper article, he kept a journal of his time aboard H.M.S. Champion during her lengthy commission in the Pacific 1891-95, among a multitude of interesting anecdotes being his description of the annexation of Johnston Island ‘In the name of Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India’. The same source also describes a feast given to the entire ship’s crew by the Chiefs of the Cook Islands, and how Batchelor, as a Cook’s Mate, must have been rushed off his feet when the Champion’s captain returned the compliment for 200 natives aboard his command.