Africa General Service 1902-56, 3 clasps, S. Nigeria 1902, S. Nigeria 1905-06, West Africa 1906 (A. A. Chichester) good very fine and rare £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Richard Magor Collection of Medals Relating to India and Africa, and other Fine Awards.

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Athol Augustus Chichester, an ex-pupil of the Worcester training ship, and, according to his entry in the Colonial Office List, a veteran of the Egypt operations of 1885, when he served aboard H.M.S. Ganges, a hospital ship, appears to have gained his first Colonial Office appointment in 1890, as a Temporary Travelling Inspector specialising in agriculture.

In May 1897, Chichester became an Assistant District Commissioner in the Niger Coast Protectorate and between 1900-02, he served as a District Commissioner in Sapeli, transferring, in August of the latter year, to Asaba. Four months later, Captain and Brevet Major H. C. Moorhouse, Royal Artillery, led an expedition into the Asaba Hinterland, accompanied by Chichester in his capacity as District Commissioner, service that qualified him for his ‘S. Nigeria 1902’ clasp.

By 1905, he was an Acting Divisional Commissioner in the Central Division, and as such participated in Brevet Major (afterwards Marshal of the Royal Air Force) J. M. “Boom” Trenchard’s Bende-Onitsha Hinterland Expedition, a punitive outing brought about by the horrific murder of Dr. Stewart, he whose body parts were scattered around numerous villages as “Ju Ju”.

And in 1906, Chichester added a third clasp to his Medal for the West Africa operations of that year, this particular expedition being mounted in response to the murder of Mr. O. S. Crewe-Read, an Assistant District Commissioner who must have been known to Chichester since he was serving in the Asaba District. The opposition, the Owa tribe, fought bravely, inflicting over 200 casualties, three of them British Officers.