Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The important Sierra Leone C.M.G. and Royal Service M.V.O. group of four awarded to Rear-Admiral Peyton Hoskyns, Royal Navy

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s breast badge, silver-gilt and enamels, complete with ribbon buckle; The Royal Victorian Order, M.V.O., Member’s 4th Class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamels, the reverse unnumbered; East & West Africa 1887-1900, 1 clasp, Sierra Leone 1898-99 (Commr: P. Hoskyns, H.M.S. Blonde); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Captain P. Hoskyns, C.M.G., M.V.O., R.N., H.M.S. Forte); together with his wife’s or daughter’s British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (G. M. Hoskyns. V.A.D.) minor chipping to the first two, otherwise extremely fine (6) £4000-5000

C.M.G. London Gazette 9 January 1900: ‘In recognition of services with the Military operations in 1898-9 in the Sierra Leone Protectorate.’

M.V.O. awarded 11 May 1896: ‘Peyton Hoskyns, H.M.S. Blonde; Funeral of H.R.H. Prince Henry of Battenberg.’ One of the first three appointments of the M.V.O., all for like services; the only earlier appointments to this order were G.C.V.Os to The Prince of Wales and The Duke of Connaught, six days earlier.

M.I.D. London Gazette 29 December 1899: ‘At the critical period of the Mendi rising the presence of Her Majesty’s ships Blonde and Alecto, which Captain Henderson despatched to Bonthe, absolutely secured that place from attack by the insurgents, and the boat expeditions which were organized from those ships up the rivers and creeks, by the punishment which they inflicted on the insurgents, put any future attempts on the part of the latter to take Bonthe out of the question.
Commander Peyton Hoskyns, R.N., commanded several of these expeditions; amongst others he proceeded on the 4th May up the Jong River to Bogo, driving the insurgents from their stockades and inflicting severe losses on them, and on the 13th he covered with a gun force the advance of Lieutenant-Colonel Cunningham’s column up the Jong River, at times under heavy fire from the banks.’

M.I.D. London Gazette 30 December 1918, Nurse G. M. Hoskyns, Voluntary Aid Detachment (France).

Peyton Hoskyns was born at Aston Tyrrold, Berkshire, on 15 September 1852, the fifth son of Sir John Leigh Hoskyns, 9th Baronet, and Emma, daughter of Sir John Strutt Peyton, K.C.H. He was educated at Haileybury and H.M.S. Britannia, and joined the Royal Navy as a Naval Cadet in April 1866. He married, 1882, Grace Macduff, daughter of D. M. Latham, J.P., D.L., of Gourock House, Renfrewshire, and had issue two sons and two daughters.

He was appointed a member of the 4th class of the Royal Victorian Order as a mark of Her Majesty’s appreciation of the special services rendered by him on the occasion of the death of H.R.H. Prince Henry of Battenberg, who was taking passage in H.M.S. Blonde after the Ashanti expedition of 1895, and had died en route to Sierra Leone. For his services during the Sierra Leone rebellion in 1898-99 he was mentioned in despatches, promoted to Captain, and decorated with the C.M.G. He commanded H.M.S. Forte during the operations in South Africa 1899-1902, and retired in September 1907. He was advanced to Retired Rear-Admiral on 12 May 1908, and died on 20 December 1919.