Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A scarce Colonial Officer’s C.M.G. group of three awarded to H. S. Goldsmith, Esq., Lieutenant-Governor of Northern Nigeria Province 1918-21

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with short section of neck riband; Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, N. Nigeria 1906 (H. S. Goldsmith, P.D.N.N.); France, Third Republic, Legion of Honour, Officer’s breast badge, silver, gold appliqué, and enamel, poincon mark to base of tassel, with rosette on riband, minor white enamel damage to tips of points on the Legion of Honour, otherwise generally good very fine (3) £1,400-£1,800

Provenance: Richard Magor Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, July 2003.

C.M.G. London Gazette 14 June 1912.

French Legion of Honour, Fourth Class London Gazette 27 August 1918.

Herbert Symons Goldsmith was born in August 1873 and was educated at Cranbrook and at Eastbourne College. Entering the Colonial Civil Service in 1899, he was appointed an Assistant Resident in Northern Nigeria in 1901. By the outbreak of the hostilities with the Mimshi tribe in 1906, he had risen to 1st Class Resident.

The 1906 operations took place during Winston Churchill’s time as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and had his original assessment of the situation been accepted, Residents such as Goldsmith would never have been called to an operational footing. In Churchill’s view, news of the murder of an African trader and his family by Mimshi tribesmen was nothing to get excited about. Indeed he famously cabled Sir Frederick Lugard, ‘I see no reason ... why these savage tribes should not be allowed to eat each other without restraint.’ But since the Mimshi made the fatal error of laying waste the Royal Niger Company’s depot at the same place, local opinion won the day.

Exactly what role Goldsmith played in the operations remains unknown, but we may be sure that the news of the murder of his fellow Residents, Messrs. H. R. Preston-Hillary and A.G.M. Scott, with Lieutenant F. E. Blackwood, focused his endeavours.

Goldsmith was created a C.M.G. shortly before his elevation to Acting Chief Secretary in 1912, and ended his career with a stint as Lieutenant-Governor of Northern Nigeria Province between 1918-21. Retiring to Chichester, Sussex, he kept himself busy with such appointments as Chairman of the West Africa Exhibition Committee between 1924-25. He died in March 1945.