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Mint:
Birmingham
Issuer:
British South Africa Company
Artist:
Caton Woodville, R.
Ruler:
Victoria (1837-1901)
Ruler:
Victoria regina
(With the title of)
The British South Africa Company was established by Cecil Rhodes in an attempt to match the successes of the British East India Company from the base of the British Cape Colony (now South Africa) into the briefly-Portuguese territories to the north, an area soon known as Rhodesia. The Company, given a royal charter in 1889, recruited its own forces and from 1890 onwards significant engagements resulted in the award of this medal to those troops.
One of their opponents was Lobengula Kumalo, King of the Matabele, a Zulu people who had established a separate nation in the early nineteenth century. This nation became one of the BSAC's target territories and fear of the imminent colonisation led to attacks on Company territories in Bechuanaland (in the Cape Colony, now South Africa) in 1893 and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1896, the latter joined by an uprising of the Mashona people, whose province now lies in Zimbabwe and had been annexed in 1890.
It was the suppression of the Mashona uprising, achieved by the capture of the Mashona chiefs, that earnt the bar on this medal, which was awarded to Corporal J. Munroe of the British South African Police. Its suspension is unusual. Lester Watson purchased it from the London dealers Spink at some point before 1928.
History note: Gift of L. Hoyt Watson; ex Lester Watson Collection, bt Spink before 1928
Given by Lester Watson through Cambridge in America, 2009
Diameter: 36.8 mm
Weight: 37.89 g
Method of acquisition: Given (2009) by Watson, Lester
Production date: AD 1897
Inscription present: Bust of Victoria facing left with veil
Inscription present: Lion with spear in chest leaping over African native wargear, brush behind
Accession number: CM.1318-2009
Primary reference Number: 141412
Watson Catalogue: 223
Ordering: M-0201
Previous object number: LW.0201
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Coins and Medals
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "British South Africa Company Medal (Mashonaland 1897)" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/141412 Accessed: 2024-11-24 17:16:15
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/141412
|title=British South Africa Company Medal (Mashonaland 1897)
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-24 17:16:15|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-141412
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0201_281_29.jpg"
alt="British South Africa Company Medal (Mashonaland 1897)"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">British South Africa Company Medal (Mashonaland 1897)</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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