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Picture courtesy of Noonan's

East and West Africa (1) 1891-2 (W. C. Browning, A.B., H.M.S. Racer);
QSA (6) Cape Colony, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, Belfast (136960 P-O: W. C. Browning, H.M.S. Monarch);
Naval LS&GC Ed VII (W. C. Browning, Act. C.P.O., H.M.S. Medea)

Noonan's say only 63 six-clasp Queen’s South Africa medals to the Royal Navy, including 50 to Monarch.

Acting Chief Petty Officer William Charles Browning was born at Crewkerne, Somerset, in January 1871 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class aboard HMS Impregnable, aged 15 years. Advanced to Boy 1st Class in April 1887, to Ordinary Seaman in January 1889 and to Leading Seaman in February 1890, he joined HMS Racer in April 1891. In this latter ship he was landed with the Naval Brigade sent to punish Chief Fodeh Cabbah. Further promoted to Petty Officer 2nd Class in November 1895 and to Petty Officer 1st Class in March 1897, he next saw active service in HMS Monarch, which ship he joined in July of the latter year. Landed for service with the Naval Brigade in the Boer War, he saw extensive service which qualified him for a six-clasp medal. Awarded his LS&GC medal and advanced to Acting Chief Petty Officer in 1904, Browning was invalided ashore in February 1909, suffering from ‘mental deficiency’. A closing statement on his Service Record states that his name was put forward for financial assistance from the Royal Patriotic Fund.

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

QSA (1) Belmont (187211 Ord: S. Austin, H.M.S. Monarch) impressed naming

Noonan's say only 16 single ‘Belmont’ clasps to H.M.S. Monarch.

Ordinary Seaman S. Austin was killed in action at Graspan on 25 November 1899. Four officers and 12 men of the Royal Naval Brigade were killed at Graspan, and one man died of wounds.

At 7am on 25 November 1899, at Graspan, the infantry began to work forward under the cover of artillery fire. The Naval Brigade led the storming force, extended in a single line, each man six paces apart from his neighbour. As they began the ascent, advancing by brief rushes in very open order, the hill suddenly appeared to swarm with enemies; from the crest, from behind every boulder poured a murderous fire. The naval officers of the Brigade still carried swords and could be readily distinguished; they were the target of every Boer rifle. Major Plumbe of the Marines, who was gallantly leading in front of his men, closely followed into the storm of battle by his little terrier, staggered, shouting to his soldiers, not to mind him, but to advance. He never rose again. Colonel Verner, who survived the action, afterwards stated that ‘no better kept line ever went forward to death or glory’. However, so terrible was the fire and so annihilating it’s effects upon the Brigade, that the order had to be given to retire upon the last cover.

For a moment it seemed as though the attack had failed. But the artillery poured its fire upon the crest of the ridge with more vehemence than ever; and up the slopes in very open order, firing and cheering, came the Yorkshire Light Infantry to the support of the hard pressed Naval Brigade, while the Loyal North Lancashire’s and Northumberland’s too, were sweeping forward upon the line of heights held by the Boers. Once more the Seamen and Marines pressed upward at an order from the wounded Captain Prothero ‘Men of the Naval Brigade, advance at the double; take that Kopje and be hanged to it.’ The men responded magnificently. For the last few yards of the advance the Boers could no longer fire with safety at their assailants. Their very position became disadvantageous as the slopes were so steep that they had to stand up to see their assailants, and in the deluge of shrapnel and rifle bullets which beat upon the summit, this meant almost certain death. Lieutenant Taylor of the Navy and Lieutenant Jones of the Marines, the last in spite of a bullet in his thigh, were the first into the Boer entrenchments at the top. They were closely followed by their men, and the Kopje was won.

‘I shall never forget the faces of some of those who had fallen in the final rush,’ said Colonel Verner, of the dead of the Naval Brigade. ‘They lay about in every attitude, many with their rifles, with bayonets fixed, tightly clutched in their hands, and in some cases still held at the charge. These were the same hard featured, clean cut faces, which but a short time before I had watched laboriously skirmishing across the veldt, now pale in death, but with the same set expression of being in terrible ernest to see the business through.’