TOPIC:

Please tell me he was a Tory Peer, otherwise my interest wanes.

It is a cracking pair of medals though. Are these war correspondents part of those sold off on a recent DNW auction?

Regards

Rory

Rory,

No, these are are new but small set that haven't been recorded here before.

Pictures courtesy of DNW

QSA (0) (Mr. M. Menpes “Black & White.”)

Mortimer Luddington Menpes was born in 1855 at Port Adelaide, South Australia, the son of property developer James Menpes and was educated at John L. Young’s Adelaide Educational Institution, although his formal art training began at the School of Art in London in 1878 after his family had moved back to England in 1875 and settled in Chelsea. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880, and, over the following 20 years, 35 of his paintings and etchings were shown at the Academy. He met James McNeil Whistler on a sketching tour of Brittany in 1880 and became Whistler’s pupil, learning the etching techniques that were to become evident in much of his later work. In 1886 he stood as godfather to Oscar Wilde’s son and the following year, a visit to Japan led to his first one-man exhibition at Dowdeswell’s Gallery in London.

In 1900, following the outbreak of war in the Transvaal, Menpes sailed to South Africa as a war artist for the weekly illustrated magazine Black & White, in which, on 3 February 1900, the following appeared: ‘Accompanying the City of London Imperial Volunteers to the front is an artist whose name is known the whole world over, because he is first of all an artist, and secondly a reporter of events. This is Mr. Mortimer Menpes, who is entitled to tag after his name a list of honours and titles of which few artists can boast. Mr. Menpes is the inventor of a process of colour etching, in which, to the sharpness and definition attained by the tools of the etcher, he has added the softness and brilliance of all the rich colours that may be laid on the painter’s palette. Mr Menpes will be able to send us from the front portraits of all the principal Generals and notabilities of the war.’

Menpes’ sketches from the campaign were subsequently transcribed by his daughter Dorothy Menpes and published by Charles Black of Soho Square in 1901 under the title ‘War Impressions, being a record in colour by Mortimer Menpes’.

After the war Menpes travelled widely and and many of his illustrations were published in books again accompanied by text written by Dorothy. He painted in oil and watercolour as well as being a prolific printmaker, producing over 700 etchings and drypoints during his career to great acclaim. A definitive catalog raisonné of his printed works was published in 2012 which also included an extensive biography and his exhibition history. He died at Pangbourne in 1938.

‘Menpes, Mortimer, F.R.G.S.; painter, etcher, raconteur, and rifle-shot; inartistically born in Australia; war artist for Black and White in South Africa, 1900. Educ.: nominally at a grammar school in Port Adelaide, but really on a life scheme of his own. His career as a painter began when he was one year old; he is still a painter. He had held more one-man exhibitions in London than any other living painter: viz Japan, India, Mexico, Burmah, Cashmere, France, Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Venice, Beautiful Women, Beautiful Children, The War in South Africa, Venice, exhibitions of Black and White, and of Etchings in colour, thereby reviving a lost art. Publications: a whole series of etchings at different periods; Essays (one called the Actualists, a skit on the Impressionists); War Impressions, 1901; Japan 1901; World Pictures, 1902; World’s Children, 1903; The Durbar, 1903; Venice, 1904; Whistler as I knew Him, 1904; Brittany, 1905; Rembrandt, 1905; India, 1905; Thames, 1906; Sir Henry Irving, 1906; Portrait Biographies, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener. In the preparation of World Pictures he did the world in record time, being unsurpassed even by Jules Verne. Founder of the Menpes Press; Founder of the Menpes Great Masters, which are reproduced under his direction; Founder and Managing Director of the Menpes Fruit Farms, Pangboume.’ (Who’s Who, 1932)

Sold together with a copy of Black & White magazine (cover loose), dated 3 February 1900, containing the above quoted reference to Menpes and his portrait picture; copy of Black & White magazine, dated 5 May 1900, cover loose; a quantity of copies of Menpes’ illustrations and sketches appearing in Black & White magazine during 1900; a letter from Menpes to a Mr Head, written from the Vicarage, Gorelstone in 1902, regarding a sold painting; other copied research and the following 8 hardback books: Deluxe Edition (No 86 of 350 copies and signed by Mortimer Menpes) of War Impressions, being a record in colour by Mortimer Menpes transcribed by Dorothy Menpes published by Adam & Charles Black Soho Square, London 1901, very good condition; another, standard 1901 edition, binding loose; Japan a record in colour by Mortimer Menpes transcribed by Dorothy Menpes published by Adam & Charles Black , Soho Square, London 1901, binding loose; World Pictures by Mortimer Menpes text by Dorothy Menpes published by A. & C. Black Soho Square London 1902; World’s Children by Mortimer Menpes text by Dorothy Menpes, published by Adam and Charles Black, London, 1903, 1st edition, Westbourne School Sheffield 1908 prize label inside front cover - awarded to Dorothy A. Nash, cover of spine weak; India by Mortimer Menpes text by Flora Annie Steel published by Charles Black Soho Square London, 1912 edition, ex public library, spine sun faded; Paris by Mortimer Menpes text by Dorothy Menpes published by Adam and Charles Black 1909, with partially torn dust jacket, inscribed inside front cover ‘with love and good wishes from all at Netherley, Xmas 1909’ Venice by Lonsdale and Laura Ragg illustrated by Mortimer Menpes, published by A. & C. Black Ltd. 4,5 & 6 Soho Square, London, 1916.

Hi all,

I am keen to locate (and acquire) the QSA medal awarded to J. Willis, Reuter Correspondent.

The reason is simply that I purchased this medal with my first decent pay cheque nearly 50 years ago. Subsequently it was a stipulated target for an exchange by a well known Johannesburg dealer in the early 1980s for another even more desirable medal. For sentimental reasons I want to try to get it back!

I would of course be most happy to exchange it for an equivalent medal, even a similar QSA awarded to another “Reuter” correspondent, and to add a suitable sweetner which would make any discerning collector very happy!

RobM

Picture courtesy of DNW

[ KBE (Civil) London Gazette 8 January 1919: ‘Captain William Maxwell’ ]
QSA (0) (Mr. W. Maxwell. “Standard”);
Delhi Durbar 1911, silver, unnamed as issued;
Japan, Empire, Order of the Rising Sun, Fifth Class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, with central cabochon;
Khedive’s Sudan 1896-1908, 1 clasp, Khartoum, unnamed as issued;
Japan, Empire, Russo-Japanese War Medal 1904-05, unnamed as issued

Provenance: Sotheby’s February 1990, when sold together with K.B.E. neck badge and breast star, and Turkish Order of the Medjidjie Commander’s 3rd Class neck badge; and Spink May 1991 when sold with Turkish Order of the Medjidjie Commander’s 3rd Class neck badge.

William Maxwell was born in 1860 in Workington, Cumberland to Irish born parents. He was described in the 1881 census as a ‘Newspaper Reporter’ and in 1885 he was assigned by the morning Standard to replace John Cameron in the Sudan, the latter having perished with Hicks relief expedition in 1885. As war correspondent, he experienced the march to Khartoum with Kitchener’s army in 1898 and witnessed the defeat of the Mahdi at the Battle of Omdurman (Queen’s Sudan medal). After describing the spectacular tour of the German Emperor through Palestine and Syria, and covering the first peace conference at the Hague, 1899, he was packed off by his employers to cover the Boer War where he was shut up with the British Forces under White at Ladysmith. Undaunted by this trying experience, he then went to Kimberley and was with Robert’s army in every engagement from the capture of Bloemfontein to the Battles of Lydenburg and Komati Point (medal). He then served as the Standard’s correspondent on the Prince and Princess of Wales’s tour around the Empire, March to November 1901 and the following year published his own account of the voyage - With the “Ophir” Round the Empire.

In 1903 Maxwell joined the Daily Mail with which paper he was assigned to cover the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05. He accompanied General Kuroki’s Army from the Battle of Yalu to the Battle of Shaho and was with General Nogi at the surrender of Port Arthur (Order of the Rising Sun and medal), the campaign was described in his book From the Yalu to Port Arthur: a personal record (1906). This was followed by a number of Eastern trips including the Prince of Wales’ Indian tour and his attendance at the Coronation of the Shah and the Delhi Durbar of 1911 (medal). A journey up the Yangtze to cover the revolution in Peking was then followed by a visit to Borkum to report on the German island defences and he accompanied the Bulgarian forces whilst reporting on the Balkan Wars, 1912.

At the outbreak of the Great War Maxwell was in the service of the Daily Telegraph attached to the Belgian Army and, in the first of many adventures during that war, he was arrested by a British patrol outside Mons after fleeing Brussels as it fell to the German Army in August 1914. He was present at the Battles of the Marne and the Aisne and received a commission as Captain on the Special List attached to the Imperial General Staff on 16 April 1915 (London Gazette 16 April 1915). He immediately embarked for the Dardanelles where he joined the Headquarters Staff of Sir Ian Hamilton as Chief Field Censor. Under regulations drawn up and enforced by the British Army, press correspondents at Gallipoli were required to submit all their writings to Captain Maxwell, whose approval was required prior to their transmission. Maxwell therefore played a central role in the unsuccessful attempt to palliate reports about the events unfolding in the Gallipoli Campaign. After the war he became a section head in the Secret Service.

Captain Sir William Maxwell died at Wraysbury in 1928, aged 66.

Picture courtesy of DNW

QSA (0) (Mr. B. Hodgetts. “Daily Express”)

Edward Arthur Brayley Hodgetts was born in Berlin in 1859, a British subject by parentage, and was educated at Moscow. During a highly cosmopolitan career, he served as Russian Correspondent to The Times, the Daily Graphic and and Reuters for several years, was Paris Editor of Dalziel’s Agency, Foreign Editor of the New York World, Librarian to the Institution of Civil Engineers and wrote many books, the first of which - Personal Reminiscences of General Skobeleff - was published by W. H. Allen & Co. in 1884. He was fluent in many languages and widely travelled from a young age, spending time on the Continent as well as in America, Russia and Asia Minor - his experiences of the the latter two were related in two well-received travel memoirs: In the track of the Russian famine; the personal narrative of Journey through the famine districts of Russia, published by T. Fisher Unwin in 1892 and Round about Armenia: the record of a journey across the Balkans through Turkey, the Caucasus, and Persia in 1895, published by Low, Marston, 1896. He translated Johann David Wyss’s The Swiss Family Robinson into a widely read English language version in 1897 and throughout this period authored many articles for The Strand Magazine and The Pall Mall Gazette.

Following the outbreak of the Boer War, Sir Arthur Pearson secured the services of Brayley Hodgett to cover the conflict as Special Correspondent for his soon to be launched newspaper, The Daily Express. Having embarked for the Cape in the Dunvegan Castle in mid February 1900, Brayley Hodgetts is known to have been invalided with enteric fever during his time in South Africa.

Returning to London, he continued to write, his books now beginning to focus mostly on Russian and German historical themes: The court of Russia in the nineteenth century, Methuen 1908; The House of Hohenzollern: two centuries of Berlin court life, Dutton 1911; The life of Catherine the Great of Russia, Brentano’s 1914 and Glorious Russia : its life, people and destiny, Bristol 1915. In the 1911 census, however, he describes himself as an author of literature and Secretary of a public company in the Dynamite Trade; his book entitled ‘The rise and progress of the British explosives industry’ had been published two years earlier.
Towards the end of his career, in 1924, his wrote an entertaining and anecdote filled personal memoir, ‘Moss from a Rolling Stone’, in relation to which the following article appeared in The Scotsman, 31 March 1924:
‘Mr E. A. Brayley Hodgetts makes a very agreeable companion in his recollections of what has been a varied and active career. As a journalist and foreign correspondent he has visited many lands and met all sorts and conditions of men; and he records his impressions effectively, bringing many a good story to his aid. He was born in Berlin - “because a man is born in a stable he is not necessarily a horse, and my being born in Berlin of British parents did not involve the forfeiture of my birthright as an Englishman” - and his earliest recollection of Berlin was - “seeing a rather flush faced officer, clean shaven, in a military cap, and with strange, dreamy, blue eyes, driving in an open carriage. That was Frederick William IV., the mad king of Prussia!” Subsequent memories cluster round New York after the Civil War, London in the ‘eighties, Berlin under William II, Paris under the Republic, St. Petersburg under Alexander III. There are chapters on experiences in the Near East and in South Africa . Among well-known figures of whom there are glimpses in the course of the reminiscences are Ruskin, Bronte Harte, Oscar Wilde, Tolstoy, Gladstone, Joseph Chamberlain, Clemenceau, King Edward VII and Kaiser Wilhelm II.‘

He died at Kensington, London in 1932.