IDENTIFIERS ----------- id: 141412 accession number: CM.1318-2009 DATE AUDIT ---------- created: Saturday 6 August 2011 updated: Monday 15 January 2024 DESCRIPTIVE DATA ---------------- object type: 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. title: British South Africa Company Medal (Mashonaland 1897) NOTES ----- type: history note value: Gift of L. Hoyt Watson; ex Lester Watson Collection, bt Spink before 1928 LICENSING --------- text license status: CC0 image license status: CC-BY-NC-SA OWNERSHIP --------- instutition: The Fitzwilliam Museum department: Coins and Medals collection: Lester Watson Collection creditline: Given by Lester Watson through Cambridge in America, 2009 STABLE URL ---------- url: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/141412 TECHNIQUES ---------- struck CATEGORIES ------ category: medal DATING ------ creation date: 1897 - 1897 creation date earliest: 1897 creation date latest: 1897 CREATORS -------- maker: Birmingham maker: British South Africa Company maker: Caton Woodville, R. maker: Victoria (1837-1901) maker: Victoria regina DIMENSIONS ---------- dimension: Diameter units: mm value: 36.8 dimension: Weight units: g value: 37.89 CITATIONS -------- British and other Campaign and Gallantry Medals From the Collection of Lester Watson (d. 1959) --- IMAGES surrogate: large format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0201_281_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 132 pixels surrogate: mid format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0201_281_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 132 pixels surrogate: original format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0201_281_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 132 pixels surrogate: preview format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0201_281_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 132 pixels surrogate: large format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0201_282_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 130 pixels surrogate: mid format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0201_282_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 130 pixels surrogate: original format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0201_282_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 130 pixels surrogate: preview format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0201_282_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 130 pixels