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Medals to Maj Gen S S Butler, SSR 11 years 1 month ago #8179

  • djb
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These are the campaign medals to Maj Gen S S Butler CB CMG DSO, South Staff Regt who served a Lt in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment during the Boer War.


Picture curtesy of the London Medal Company.

His Obituary, as published in The Times on 20 July 1920 states: “Major-General Stephen Seymour Butler, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., died on Thursday at his home at Hambledon, Hampshire. He was 83. Stephen Seymour Butler, the son of the Rev. G. H. Butler, was born in October 6, 1880, Educated at Winchester, he joined the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment from the Militia in 1899 and served with his regiment in the South African War. In 1905 he joined the King’s African Rifles, taking part in the Nandi expedition of 1906 and the Embu Expedition in the following year. In 1908 he was promoted captain and transferred to The South Staffordshire Regiment, though seconded almost at once, this time to the Egyptian Army. The following year he read an interesting paper before the Royal Geographical Society describing a journey from Baghdad to Damascus via northern Arabia, a route until then unexplored by a European. The journey was part of an exploration of Northern Arabia carried out during 1907 and 1908 and added much to the scanty knowledge then possessed of those parts. While with the Egyptian Army he took part in the operations in South Kordofan in 1910. The outbreak of the war found him still serving with the Egyptian Army, but in 1915 he joined the General Staff of the anzacs with whom he served throughout the Gallipoli campaign and in France until 1918, when for a short time, he went to G.H.Q. For his services, during which he was wounded he was awarded the D.S.O., the C.M.G., the brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel, and was five times mentioned in despatches. After a year on the General Staff at Constantinople under Sir Charles Harrington, he went in 1920 to Rawalpindi as Military Secretary to General Birdwood, who was then commanding the Northern Command. During this time he took part in the Waziristan campaign. Before returning to the continent that he knew so well he filled the post of Military Attaché at Bucharest for three years until, on promotion to Colonel, he was made Inspector General of the Royal West African Frontier Force. After four years in this important position he passed in 1930, to the post of Kaid to the Sudan Defence Force. In 1934, though not a Staff College graduate, he was one of those to go over the heads of many tried leaders and was promoted to major-general; a few months later he was given command of the 48th (South Midland) Division. He was years later, to be recalled when war broke out that year. He was head of the military mission to Turkey in 1939-40, was engaged in liaison work in Africa in 1940-41, and after the Italians were thrown out of Ethiopia in 1941 was given the task of forming a new Ethiopian Army. He was twice mentioned in despatches. Butler married in 1913 Phylis, daughter of Captain Critchley-Salmonson, of Chagford, Devon. They had two sons.”
Dr David Biggins
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Medals to Maj Gen S S Butler, SSR 11 years 1 month ago #8198

  • Brett Hendey
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David

The medals are an amazing record of the service of a soldier in the declinig years of the old British Empire. He lived long enough to witness its final unravelling, which he must have regretted more than most men. Thank you for showing his medals.

Regards
Brett

PS He presumably died in 1963, not 1920.

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