Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: E. A. Floyer, Inspector General of Egyptian Telegraphs, a scholar, explorer and scientist, who accompanied Kitchener on his mission to see the Mudir of Dongola, and subsequent disguised forays from Debba. Known to General Gordon, he corresponded with him at Khartoum, and also heavily contributed to Sir Reginald Wingate’s history of the Egyptian Campaigns

Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, undated reverse, 1 clasp, The Nile 1884-85 (Insp: Genl Of Telegrs E. A. Floyer.); Khedive’s Star, dated 1884-6, unnamed as issued, generally good very fine and rare (2) £800-£1,200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from an Africa Collection.

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Dix Noonan Webb, December 1999 (when sold as a single Egypt and Sudan 1882-89 medal)

Ernest Ayscoghe Floyer, the British telegraph engineer and explorer, was born on 4 July 1852, at Marshchapel, Lincolnshire, eldest surviving son of the Rev. Ayscoghe Floyer by his wife Louisa Sara, daughter of the Hon. Frederick John Shore of the Bengal Civil Service. After education at Charterhouse from 1865 until 1869, Floyer served for seven years in the Indian telegraph service, being stationed on the coast of the Persian Gulf. On receiving his long leave, in January 1876, he started for the unexplored interior of Baluchistan. His journeys there occupied him until May 1877, and his observations and surveys earned him a reputation as a bold and intelligent explorer. His results were published in ‘Unexplored Baluchistan’ (1882), with illustrations and map. The narrative describes a journey of exploration from Jask to Kirman via Anguhran. There are appendices on dialects of Western Baluchistan and on plants collected. In January 1878 he was appointed Inspector General of Egyptian telegraphs, a post which he held until his death.
He and his telegraph staff played an important part in maintaining communications with the Egyptian garrisons in the Sudan at the beginning of the Mahdist revolt. In 1884 he made a journey from Halfa to Debba, in the Dongola province with H. H. Kitchener, then in the intelligence department of the Egyptian army. He also regularly corresponded with General Gordon:

‘Dear General Gordon,

I send you the above as the last public news we have heard. I have been appointed Inspector General of the Soudan Telegraph, but at present I can’t get beyond Debba to inspect them, as Mr Hudai has captured the Merowi telegraph office, and the Sirdar will not let us advance. I am ordered back to Halfa, and am leaving by boat this morning. With kind regards to Colonel Stewart.

Yours sincerely,

E. A. Floyer.

Debba, 22 August 1884.’ (The Journals of Major General C. G. Gordon C.B. at Khartoum refers)

Later in the journal Gordon writes the following having used telegraph forms for his journal, “Floyer wil be furious at this misuse of telegraph forms.”

The following report from Floyer appeard in Reynolds Newspaper 24 August 1884:

‘Writing from Dongola: ‘The people here go about armed to the teeth. Even my barber comes to me with a huge spear in one hand and his shaving tackle in another. The Mudir of Dongola has ordered his men to collect and mass at Sarras, the railway terminus, 1,000 camels to aid in the transport of stores southwards; 1,500 out of the 2,000 men promised by the Mudir are on their way to Sarras, under the charge of Issedin Bey, a Vakeel of Dongola.’

Floyer so administered the department as to convert an annual loss into a substantial annual surplus. He induced the government to devote a portion of this to experiments in the cultivation of trees and plants upon the soil of the desert. He took charge of these experiments in the capacity of director of plantations, state railways and telegraphs of Egypt. He cultivated successfully cactus for fibre, casuarina for telegraph poles, Hyoscyamus muticus yielding the alkaloid hyoscamine, and other plants. Having discovered nitrate of soda in a clay in Upper Egypt, he was appointed by the government to superintend the process of its extraction. At the same time he engaged in exploration. In 1887 he surveyed two routes between the Nile and the Red Sea in about N. lat. 26°. In 1891 he was appointed by the Khedive to the command of an important expedition in a more southern part of the same desert (about N. lat. 24°). In this expedition he rediscovered the abandoned emerald mines of Sikait and Zabbara which had been worked at various epochs from early times. As the result of Floyer’s report these mines were reopened. The outcome of this expedition, antiquarian, scientific, and economic, is fully described in his official publication ‘Etude sur la Nord-Etbai entre le Nil et la Mer Rouge’ (Cairo, 1893, 4to, with maps and illustrations). For services to the military authorities Floyer received the British medal ‘Egypt 1882,’ with clasp ‘The Nile 1884-85,’ and the Khedive’s bronze star. Floyer, who was popular with his native employees, had a mastery of Arabic and possessed an ear for minute differences of dialect. He described his Egyptian explorations in ‘The Mines of the Northern Etbai’ (Trans. Roy. Asiatic Soc. October 1892); ‘Notes on the Geology of the Northern Etbai’ (Trans. Geol. Soc. 1892); ‘Further Routes in the Eastern Desert of Egypt’ (Geogr. Journ. May 1893); and ‘Journeys in the Eastern Desert of Egypt’ (Proc. Roy. Geogr. Soc. 1884 and 1887). To the Journal of the ‘Institut Egyptien’ for 1894-96 he contributed many papers on antiquarian, botanical, and agricultural matters. (Ref. Dictionary of National Biography and Biographical Dictionary of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan).

Floyer died in Cairo in 1903, and is extensively mentioned in several works including Life, Letters and Diaries of Lieutenant General Sir Gerald Graham and The Story of My Life by Sir Harry H. Johnston.

Sold with a copy of Notes on a Sketch Map of two Routes in the Eastern Desert of Egypt by the recipient, extensive copied research, and several photographic images of the recipient.