The highlight of the Militaria and Ethnographica sale which sold for £1,300 (all figures exclude buyer’s premium) was an extraordinarily detailed first-hand account of a 19th century shipwreck in the Indian Ocean. The letter recounting the event, written by survivor Sergeant Alfred Addyman to his mother, was sold along with his Victorian King’s Royal Rifle Corps Medals and related material. The medals comprise the Indian General Service Medal with clasp for Samana 1891, and the Queen’s South Africa Medal with clasp for Talana, Defence of Ladysmith, Transvaal and Laing’s Nek.
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Shipwreck Letter Sells For £1,300
On 14th January 1897, the Royal Indian Marine Troopship Warren Hastings fell afoul of a storm and ran aground on the rocky shores of Réunion whilst travelling to Mauritius from Cape Town. There were 1,244 souls on board, including women and children. Having veered eight miles off course due to fog and a malfunctioning compass, the ship hit the rocks. In an extraordinary feat of discipline and order, only two people died during the evacuation, in what could have been a large-scale tragedy. The wonderfully verbose letter details the events before, during and after the wreck, imbued with his personality; for example, a little indignant at having had to be on duty and take care of his fellow soldiers in the aftermath of the shipwreck, on arrival onboard their next ship he promptly refused orders and went to bed, and, being British, Addyman’s closing words to his mother were a complaint about the weather.
Also of interest was a private collection of British, South African and Indian Army badges sold for £6,050. Highlights included Six Silver Indian Army Badges (sold for £1,000) and Various South African Badges (sold for £550).
Elsewhere in the sale, uniforms sold well, including A Pre-1914 Full Dress Uniform to a Trooper the 21st Lancers (sold for £2,000), A Pre-1914 Full Dress Uniform to a Trooper the 12th Lancers (sold for £750) and an Early 20th Century Royal Court Dress Uniform by Ede & Ravenscroft, London (sold for £650).
A group of items with Second World War interest sold for £750 and included A Second World War Japanese NCO Shin-Gunto Katana, number, with brass habaki and pierced brass tsuba, the aluminium tsuka cast to imitate cloth binding, the copper, together with Captured Material document stating "One Jap sword (captured at Penwegon during the 'Breakout Battle' August 1945) by 922083 Gunner J W Harrison, 129 Fd Regt. RA", dated 22 Nov.45, GSI Branch, HQ Twelfth Army, also, a wrist compass with leather strap, a Royal Artillery field cap internally inscribed to 922083 Harrison, a collar badge and a medal ribbon for the Burma Star.
The sale realised a hammer total of £53,000 for 268 lots sold and a sold rate of 85%
