There is a single page QSA roll and single page Supplementary roll at the National Archives. This lists 22 men in total. At least two medals were issued from the rolls of other units.
The main roles carried out by the CCOD were those of armourers, storekeepers and clerks.
My thanks to Arthur R for the following information:
The Ordnance Department was a branch of the Defence Department, which was established after the 9th Frontier War in 1878. It was headed by a Commissary of Ordnance, who reported to the Commandant-General of the Colonial Forces (the head of the Defence Department). The Defence Department was based in King William's Town rather than in the capital, Cape Town.
The Ordnance was shaken by a corruption scandal during the Basutoland Gun War (1880-81), which resulted in the dismissal of the commissary, and the subsequent resignation of the commandant-general who took the blame for his subordinates.
When Maj Gen 'Chinese' Gordon became Commandant-General in 1882, he transferred the ordnance and other staff branches to a new 'War Department', which functioned separately from the Defence Department. The War Department became the 'Control Department' in 1884, but the separation of functions proved unworkable and in 1886 the Control Department was closed and its branches reverted to the Defence Department.
Towards the end of the Anglo-Boer War in 1902, the Commissary of Ordnance was renamed 'Senior Ordnance Officer'. The title was changed to 'Chief Ordnance Officer' in 1906. The 1910 Civil Service List shows the Chief Ordnance Officer (Lt Col Sydney Style) and a small staff at King William's Town, another ordnance office under an Assistant Commissary (Capt Morley Humphery) in Cape Town, and ordnance stores in Umtata (under Capt Henry Richmond) and Kokstad (under storekeeper Daniel O'Connell).
The Defence Department was taken over by the new Union of South Africa government in 1910, and its functions were transferred to the Union Defence Forces in 1912.
The Ordnance Department badge was the crowned shield of the Cape Colony's coat of arms with the words 'Colonial Ordnance' on a ribbon below the shield.
Comments on some of the names on the medal roll :
- Lt W. Armstrong was Assistant Commissary of Ordnance at King William's Town from 1902 to 1910.
- Lt Col R.A. Lanning had been Commissary of Ordnance from 1886 until his death in 1900.
- Lt Col Sydney Style was Commissary of Ordnance/Senior Ordnance Officer/Chief Ordnance Officer from 1900 to 1910.
- The 1910 Civil Service List shows C. Billingsley (aged 61), E.F. Nicholson (54), and Maj C.A.L. Ricketts (43), as pensioners. The widows of Lt Col Lanning and Lt W.E. Mallett were also listed as pensioners.
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