Single Campaign Medals x1035


An important Africa General Service medal awarded to Colonel Sir James Hayes Sadler, Governor and Commander-in- Chief of the Windward Island, previously an Army Officer and Agent for the Indian Political Department, and a Commissioner in Uganda 1901-05 and Governor of the British East Africa Protectorate 1905-09: in the course of this latter appointment he entertained Winston Churchill during his “African Journey”


Africa General Service 1902-56, 2 clasps, Somaliland 1901, Nandi 1905-06 (Lt: Col: J. Hayes Sadler, Somali Levy) officially engraved naming, good very fine


£1,000-£1,200


Provenance: Richard Magor Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, July 2003, when sold together with his various unnamed awards, viz., K.C. M.G. neck badge and breast star; C.B. (Civil) neck badge; Coronation 1902; Coronation 1911; and Order of the Brilliant Star of Zanzibar, neck badge


James Hayes Sadler was born in 1851, the son of Sir J. H. Sadler, and was commissioned into the Army in July 1860. According to his entry in The Colonial List, he ‘served with the 61st Foot in Canada and Ireland, and 40th Foot and 33rd Bengal Native Infantry in India.’


In July 1877, Sadler was appointed to the Political Department in India, winning a ‘degree of honour, with gold medal and diploma’ for Persian in November 1879 and becoming an Assistant Agent to the Governor-General at Baroda in May 1881. A string of varied appointments followed, among them a stint as Political Agent to the ex-Amir of Afghanistan in early 1891, and as Agent at Kotal and Jhalawar later in the same year. He was also employed on special duty with the Prince Damong of Siam in early 1892, and, soon afterwards, served as Political Agent and Consul at Muscat and as Resident Agent and Consul-General in the Persian Gulf. He finally returned to India as an Assistant Secretary for the Government’s Foreign Department in April 1895. Then, in August 1898, he began his association with Africa, being appointed Political Agent and Consul in Somaliland, severing his contract with the Indian Political Service the following year. He remained in this office until December 1901, when appointed a Commissioner in Uganda.


The interim period witnessed Sadler’s participation in the Somaliland operations of May to July 1901, as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Somali Levy. Earlier that year, in his role as Consul, he had been closely involved in moulding the Protectorate’s response to the ever- increasing problems posed by the “Mad Mullah” and his followers. Some argued, certain Officers of the K.A.R. among them, that Sadler reacted with excessive caution in the early stages of the campaign, losing an opportunity to capture the Mullah. But in a policy report that he later wrote, a genuine Empire builder appears to emerge from behind this facade of ‘prevention is better then cure’:


‘The policy of the Administration is rather to avoid conflict with wilder tribes, such as those inhabiting the large tract of country to the north of Elgon and between the Nile and Lake Rudolf, and trust to the principles of our rule becoming known to them through the intervening tribes until such time as the permanent occupation of their country becomes a necessity.’


One thing is for certain, however: once Sadler and his Somali Levies actually took to the field, they performed admirably. Magor states: ‘Apart from fighting the battles of Samala and Ferdiddin, the levies covered 1170 miles in three months and carried, besides their rifles, bayonets and equipment, 100 rounds of ammunition, two days rations of dried meat and dates and a sheepskin containing a gallon of water. When required, they put up a spirited fight, which was all the more remarkable as most of the Officers could only communicate with their troops through an interpreter.’


For Sadler, the political machinations resulting from the subsequent Nandi operations of 1905-06 were probably more memorable than anything he might have done in the field. For it was in these operations that Lieutenant Richard Meinertzhagen, King’s African Rifles, prompted three Courts of Inquiry by parleying with the Laibon called Koitalel. The latter tried to ambush the Lieutenant’s party, but in the ensuing melee he was shot dead together with 23 of his entourage. ‘Opinion was that Meinertzhagen should be awarded the Victoria Cross,’ but, continues Magor, ‘the civilians had the last word as he was sent back to England. It was one of many Administration versus Army ‘fetinas’ (feuds).’


Sadler had been appointed Commissioner and C.-in-C., East Africa Protectorate, in December 1905, at the height of the Nandi operations, and was swiftly elevated to Governor and C.-in-C. in November of the following year. Away from the military scene, in John Lord’s Duty, Honour, Empire, we can catch a rather charming glimpse of him at work on his diplomatic rounds: ‘Colonel Sadler’s plump features were customarily arranged in an expression reflecting his inner expectation that he was about to be surprised, as indeed he frequently was. As Governor of the British East Africa Protectorate, he practised white man’s magic by taking a gramophone with an enormous hoist into native villages, an imposition the inhabitants bore with commendable politeness.’


One of Sadler’s ‘surprises’ was undoubtedly the announcement, in mid-1907, that he was going to be visited by Winston Churchill, the 31 year old Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in the new Liberal administration. Indeed Churchill had an extensive tour of East Africa in mind, a tour that is now better known in its published form, My African Journey. Sadler joined Churchill for a ride on Uganda’s new £5 million railway, the pair of them stopping to pose for photographs on the cowcatcher of their train.


Undoubtedly, too, Sadler took advantage of more private moments with Churchill to discuss the “Grogan Affair”. This was a potentially dangerous situation which had arisen from the recent public flogging of three Kikuyu servants outside the courthouse in Nairobi, the servants of Ewart Grogan, President of the Colonists Association. Grogan wanted to demonstrate the power of the white man in no uncertain terms, even though the crime of the three servants had been only to jolt a rickshaw. When the Governor reported to London with details of the incident, the response was firm: Grogan must be punished. Churchill, who agreed, had already written a minute on the subject before leaving London, in which he observed, ‘We must not let a few ruffians steal our beautiful and promising protectorate away from us, after all we have spent on it.’ But having experienced East Africa first hand, he quickly appreciated that the question of local race relations was just one of a ‘herd of rhinoceros questions - awkward, thick-skinned, and horned with a short sight and an evil temper, and a tendency to rush blindly upwind upon any alarm.’ Nor was he around to see Sadler being mobbed by settlers under Lord Delamere in the following year, by which stage they were demanding the right to force the natives to work for them.


Sadler received a hard-won K.C.M.G. in November 1907, and was no doubt relieved to be posted to the Windward Islands, where he served as Governor and C.-in-C. until 1914. Sir James died in April 1922.


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