Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Uganda campaign medal awarded to Miss Bertha Taylor, Church Missionary Society, whose fiancé, George Pilkington, was killed during the Sudanese mutiny of 1897

East and Central Africa 1897-99, 1 clasp, Uganda 1897-98 (Miss B. Taylor) very fine and rare £1,600-£2,000

Provenance: John Tamplin Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, September 2003.

Bertha Taylor was born c. 1867, daughter of Frederick Taylor, of Manchester. She was educated and received her training at The Willows and Mildmay Hospital in Bethnal Green from 1893. She was accepted by the Church Missionary Society in February 1896, and departed the following September for the Uganda Mission. Initially stationed at Mengo, she arrived at Kampala in February 1897. In May 1897 she became engaged to George Lawrence Pilkington, a Missionary already in Uganda working for the Church Missionary Society. Sadly, the marriage never took place as Pilkington was killed during the Sudanese uprising on 11 December 1897. Miss Taylor was one of eight ladies who received the East and Central Africa medal for her part in the operations to suppress these troubles, with the medal roll annotated ‘attended the wounded’ next to her name.

In May 1898, Bertha Taylor was moved to Gayaza. She married Harry Edward Maddox on 30 January 1901 in the Cathedral at Namirembe in Uganda. Maddox was also a Missionary with the Church Missionary Society in Uganda, and was ordained a Deacon in 1908. He served during the Great War, firstly in the ranks of the R.A.M.C. and then as a Chaplain with the Army Chaplains’ Department, winning the Military Cross for gallantry in attending to wounded under fire. He relinquished his commission in November 1917, and became Rector of Lymm in Cheshire until 1924. They lived at Brookhurst, Alderley Edge, Cheshire.

Bertha Maddox (née Taylor) died at Alderley Edge on 24 October 1950. Her husband, the Revd. H. E. Maddox, M.C., died at Macclesfield on 17 July 1951.

Sold with copied research and two group photographic images.