Chance for a good reunite...... For information purposes only.....
Found another single.....
Dublin Coins and Medals.......
BS4263
PRIVATE E. J. CHUDLEY, NAMAQUALAND TOWN GUARD, ONE OF THE DEFENDERS OF O'OKIEP, 4TH APRIL - 4TH MAY 1902.
£950 / €1,140
S4263 PRIVATE ERNEST J. CHUDLEY, NAMAQUALAND TOWN GUARD, WHO SAW SERVICE DURING THE BOER WAR AS A DEFENDER OF O'OKIEP DURING THE SIEGE OF THAT TOWN BY BOER FORCES LED BY COMMANDANT (LATER FIELD-MARSHAL) JAN CHRISTIAN SMUTS, 4TH APRIL-4TH MAY 1902, ALONGSIDE HIS FATHER, ALSO AMEMBER OF THE NAMAQUALAND TOWN GUARD.
Queen's South Africa Medal, no clasp (officially impressed: 24 PTE. E.J. CHUDLEY. NAMQULND:T.G.). Several small nicks to obverse rim, otherwise Good Very Fine.
Medal accompanied by biographical details of the Chudleys, father and son, copied extracts from various census returns, and copied medal rolls (2), original and published.
Ernest Chudley (surname also spelt Chudleigh) and his twin brother, Edward, were born in South Africa in 1881, the sons of Charles (Charley) and Ellen (nee Richards) Chudley. He is recorded in the 1891 census as a 10 year old
schoolboy living in the parish of Perranzabuloe, Cornwall, with his parents, two brothers and a sister.
Charles Chudley was born in Camborne, Cornwall, in 1843 and is recorded in the 1861 census as a 17 year old engine fitter in mines" living in Gwennap, Cornwall, with his 76 year old grandmother, Rebecca Baker. He married Ellen Jane Richards on 28/5/1867. Charles Chudley is recorded in the 1871 census as a 32 year old "engine fitter in waterworks", living in Sunbury, Middlesex as a lodger. Charles Chudley and his wife emigrated to South Africa in the 1870s, where his twin sons Ernest and Edward were born in 1881, but subsequently returned to England. The 1891 census records Charles Chudley as a 48 year old mining engineer resident in the parish of Perranzabuloe, Camborne,
Cornwall, with his wife, three sons and a daughter. Charles Chudley returned to South Africa in 1898 with his son Ernest, departing from England for Capetown on 21/5/1898, Ernest's trade being recorded on the passenger lists as
"clerk". In South Africa, Charles and Ernest settled in O'Okiep, in Namaqualand, and when the Boer War broke out, both of them joined the local town guard, seeing service during the siege of O'Okiep with the Namaqaland Town Guard.
Ernest and Charles are both recorded on the Queen's South Africa Medal Roll as being entitled to the Queen's South Africa Medal without clasp, for service with the Namaqualand Town Guard Battalion. The medal roll also confirms
that they were both engaged with the enemy at O'Okiep (Charles Chudley saw service as 214 Private). Both Ernest and Charles are recorded in Brian Kieran's "The Defence and Relief of O'Okiep" as being present at the Defence of
O'Okiep and entitled to the Cape Copper Company Medal for the Defence of O'Okiep.
Charles Chudleigh is recorded as being resident in 1914 at O'Okiep House, Bolingley, Cornwall. He died Perranporth, Cornwall, in 1928.
When Charles Chudley sailed for South Africa in 1898 with his son, his trade was recorded on the passenger list as "farmer'. Undoubtedly a clerical error based on a mis-reading of his real trade of "miner" when transcribing his
personal details.
Namaqualand and the mining town of O'Okiep are located in the north-east of Cape province in South Africa. Copper was firs discovered there in 1681, but because the region was so remote it was some 200 years before the copper
deposits were exploited. The construction of the Namaqualand Railway in 1876 enabled large scale mining and export of the copper ore, leading to a mining boom. Many of the miners who subsequently flocked to the region
were, like Charles Chudley, miners from Cornwall.
Ernest Chudley's Cape Copper Company Medal for the Defence of O'Okiep was sold at Glendinings on 16/2/1981