Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Major A. C. Pearson, Royal Marine Light Infantry, 2nd in Command of the R.M. detachment at Abu Klea and Mentioned in Despatches

Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, undated reverse, 2 clasps, The Nile 1884-85, Abu Klea (Captn. A. C. Pearson, R.M.L.I.) impressed naming; Khedive’s Star, dated 1884-6, good very fine and rare (2) £2,600-£3,000

Dix Noonan Webb, September 1998.

Only four Royal Marine Officers were present with the Camel Corps at Abu Klea, including Lieutenant C. V. F. Townshend who was later to come to prominence as the defender of Kut in 1915.

Aylmer Charles Pearson was born in Upton St Leonards, near Gloucester, on 2 August 1849, and entered the Royal Marine Light Infantry as a Lieutenant at the age of 19 in 1868. Promoted to Captain in July 1881, he took passage aboard the S.S. Duncan in May 1884 to Egypt, where he joined the Royal Marine Battalion at Port Said, and later Suakin. He was detailed for Special Service and Second in Command of the Royal Marines Detachment, comprising 4 officers and 86 N.C.O.s and men, for service as the 4th Company of the Guards Camel Regiment, Nile Expeditionary Force.

He was present at the battle of Abu Klea, the actions at Gubat and Metemmeh, and the attack on the convoy on 13 February 1885. When his Commanding Officer Major W. H. Poe was severely wounded and invalided, he commanded the Royal Marine Camel Corps from 22 January 1885, until its return to England the following July. Pearson was referred to in Lord Wolseley’s despatch in the London Gazette of 25 August 1885 as ‘deserving of special mention.’ He was promoted to Brevet Major on 15 June 1885, ‘in recognition of services rendered during the recent operations in the Sudan’, and received the medal with two clasps and the Khedive’s bronze star. He saw no further active service and retired on full pay in August 1891, and later became a Recruiting Officer at Cambridge for a brief period. He died on 4 February 1938 at the age of 88.