Auction Catalogue
Create new listA rare Ashanti 1896 C.M.G. group of five awarded to Major H. D. Larymore, Royal Artillery, A.D.C. and secretary to Colonel Sir Francis Scott and British Resident at Kumassi, later Resident in Northern Nigeria
The Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., breast badge, silver-gilt and enamels, complete with ribbon buckle; Jubilee 1897, silver; East and West Africa 1887-1900, 1 clasp, 1892 (A. Inspr. Capt., G.C. Constaby.); Ashanti Star 1896; Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, N. Nigeria 1904 (Resdt. Major, C.M.G. Political Dept.) generally good very fine (5) £1500-1800
Henry Douglas Larymore was born on 16 September 1867, son of A. D. Larymore, late Deputy Inspector-General of Jails in Bengal. He was educated at Westminster School and joined the Army as a Lieutenant in the Edinburgh Artillery (Militia) on 5 October 1886, becoming Captain in February 1891. In that same year he was seconded for employment in West Africa and served with the Jebu Expeditionary Force in 1892, as Staff Officer and secretary to Colonel F. C. Scott, C.B., Commanding the Expedition (Despatches London Gazette 1 July 1892, medal with clasp, thanks of Government and Executive and Legislative Councils of Lagos).
Larymore was next employed on various political missions to the Hinterland of the Gold Coast as Assistant Inspector in the Gold Coast Constabulary. He served in the Ashanti Expedition of 1895-96, in the operations against King Prempeh, on the Staff as Headquarters Camp Commandant and as A.D.C. to Colonel Sir Francis Scott (Honourably mentioned, Bronze Star, and nominated C.M.G. London Gazette 10 April 1896, ‘In recognition of services rendered in the recent expedition to Ashanti’). This was one of only five C.M.G.’s awarded for the Ashanti campaign.
He subsequently acted as British Resident at Kumassi 1896-97, in which year he went to India with the Royal Garrison Artillery, as second-in-command of No. 11 Company at Rangoon. He served in the same capacity at Roorkee in 1898, and with No. 9 Company at Roorkee in 1899. That same year he took command of No. 24 Company at Delhi, and at Rawal Pindi in 1900.
Larymore returned to Sierra Leone in 1901, in Colonial employment. He was appointed 3rd Class Resident in Northern Nigeria in April 1902, becoming 2nd Class Resident in the following October, and attended Christ’s College, Cambridge, as Hausa scholar in 1903. Returning to West Africa, Larymore took part in the operations against the Semolika people of Northern Nigeria, with the expedition under Captain G. C. Merrick, R.A., in October 1904 (Medal with clasp).
Larymore retired from the Army on 5 January 1907, but rejoined in January 1915 to serve on the Staff of Woolwich Arsenal as Inspecting Officer of Munitions, and later went to the U.S.A. in charge of the Explosives Section of the Munitions Commission. After the war he returned once again to West Africa to become Resident in Northern Nigeria. Major H. D. Larymore died on 30 January 1946. His wife, Constance, whom he married in 1897, had published in 1908, A Resident’s Wife in Nigeria, some extracts from which accompany the group together with other research.
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