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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.’

Picture courtesy of Aubrey's

QSA (0) (C. Blewett, Pte. R.M.L.I. H.M.S. Monarch);
China (0) (C. Blewett, Pte. R.M. H.M.S. Endymion).

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

QSA (0) (W. Everest, Gnr: R.M.A. H.M.S. Monarch);
1914 Star (R.M.A. 2697. Gunner W. Everest, R.M. Brigade);
British War and Victory Medals (R.M.A. 2697 Gnr. W. Everest. R.M.A.)

William Everest was born at Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on 23 October 1867, and enlisted for the Royal Marine Artillery at Woolwich on 23 October 1885. He was embarked on many ships during his service, including Monarch from December 1899 to June 1902.

He was discharged due to length of service on 22 October 1906 but not entitled to LS&GC medal.

Recalled in 1914 he served with the Royal Marine Brigade in France and Belgium until the end of September 1914, when he was assigned to the armed merchant cruiser Calgarian, and served aboard this ship until June 1917. He was demobilised on 24 May 1919.

Some years ago, I was fortunate to acquire the following medal visa the courtesy of a local collector friend who I have known for more than 50 years. While it is perhaps missing some of the desirable ‘battle’ clasps awarded to naval recipients who served in HMS Monarch, I have always wondered what role he played in equipping the various heavy guns which served ashore.

Single – QSA no Bar (Engr. J.A. Vaughan, R.N. H.M.S. Monarch.)

John Alfred Vaughan was born in Islington in Middlesex on 1 September 1865. He died in South Africa at the False Bay Hospital in Simonstown on 14 October 1938 due to what was then described as “mesenteric thrombosis” due to a strangulated bowel.

John Vaughan was the third son of Henry Vaughan (b 1830 – 1912) and Rachel Hughes (b 1840 – 1885). He had three brothers and two sisters. His grandfather, Moses Vaughan, was born in about 1780.

John Alfred Vaughan has the distinction of having been the very first President of the South African Institution for Engineers. This august Engineering Institution was first formed on 29 October 1910 by the amalgamation of The South African Association of Engineers and Architects which had its origins in 1892 and the Transvaal Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The Institution is now known as the South African Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

(For the civil engineering discipline, the first professionally organized body in South Africa was the Cape Society of Civil Engineers which was first founded in Cape Town in January 1903. During 1910 it became a national body and its name was changed to the South African Society of Civil Engineers and in 1948 became the South African Institution of Civil Engineers.)

The following obituary was published in the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers after his death in 1938:

“John Alfred Vaughan was a very well-known engineer in the Union of South Africa, where he had lived for thirty-seven years. He was an authority on wire ropes, especially in their application to winding in deep mines, and was the author of several papers on the subject, which he contributed to the South African Institution of Engineers, of which he was President during 1910-11.

Mr. Vaughan was born in 1865 and received his education at the City of London School and the Royal Naval Engineering College, Devonport, and at Greenwich College. From 1881 to 1887 he served his apprenticeship under the Chief Engineer of H.M. Dockyard, Devonport, and in the latter year received his commission as Assistant Engineer. In 1892 he was promoted to Senior Engineer on HMS Rainbow. He was present at the bombardment of Valparaiso and at the bombardment of Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese war of 1894. After two years' further service, as Senior Engineer on HMS Undaunted, he was transferred in a similar capacity to HMS Monarch, at Simon's Bay, South Africa.

He retired from the Navy in 1901, on being appointed by Lord Milner as Chief Inspector of Machinery in the Department of Mines, Transvaal. On the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 the inspectorship of the other three provinces, Cape, Natal, and Orange Free State, came under his control. In 1928 he retired, but a year later he was sent to England and Germany by the Government of the Union, to investigate the prospects of establishing a steel industry in South Africa.

He was largely concerned about framing the regulations of the Mines and Machinery Act and Regulations, and the present Electricity Act. His most notable work, however, was the research which he carried out into the stresses in wire ropes, which was of great value in helping to solve the problems of winding from deep levels.

He was elected a Member of the Institution in 1901 and rendered valuable services as a member of the South Africa Advisory Committee. In addition, he took a keen interest in several South African technical societies. His death occurred at Simonstown on 14th October 1938.”

In another biographical write-up published on the Web the S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science records the following:

“Vaughan, Mr John Alfred (mechanical engineering)

Born: 1 September 1865, London, England.
Died: 14 October 1938, Simonstown, Western Cape, South Africa.

John Alfred Vaughan, mechanical engineer, was the son of Henry Vaughan. He was educated at the City of London School and continued his training at the Royal Naval Engineering College, Devonport, and the Royal Navy College at Greenwich, London. In due course he became a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and later also of the Institution of Civil Engineers. For 15 years he served as an engineering officer in the Royal Navy, on board HMS Champion, Undaunted, Rainbow, and Monarch, but then retired as a result of ill health. In November 1901 he married Eileen N. Clarke of Simonstown, with whom he had one daughter. In April that same year he was appointed as Chief Inspector of Machinery in the Department of Mines of the Transvaal Colony (and later of the Union of South Africa), and head of the Government Mechanical Testing Laboratory in Johannesburg.

In 1905 Vaughan was an examiner in mechanical and electrical engineering for the second mining examination of the University of the Cape of Good Hope. The government of the Transvaal Colony nominated him as its representative on the Council of the Transvaal University College (1906) and on the Rope and Safety Catch Commission. He contributed much to the safety of winding ropes as used in the gold mines and among others published a paper on "Safety in winding operations" (Report of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, 1918, pp. 205-216). Later he presented a paper, "Notes on deep-level mining", at the Empire Mining and Metallurgical Congress in London. The paper was published in the Journal of the South African Institution of Engineers (1924, 32p). Six years later he edited the Proceedings of the Empire Mining and Metallurgical Congress (Johannesburg, 1930).

Vaughan was a member of the Mechanical Engineers' Association of the Witwatersrand, which changed its name in 1905 to the Transvaal Institute of Mechanical Engineers. With W.M. Epton as co-author he contributed an important paper on "Wire ropes used for winding: their strength and some causes of its reduction", for which they were awarded the Institute's gold medal in 1905. Vaughan served on the Institute's Council from 1905 or earlier, and as honorary secretary during 1907-1910. He was elected president for 1910/1. During his presidency the Institute amalgamated with the South African Association of Engineers (of which he was also a member, and a former vice-president) to form the South African Institution of Engineers, of which he automatically became the first president. By 1913 he served as chairman of the editorial committee that published the institution's Transactions, and in 1918/9 was the joint winner (with H.S. Potter) of the Institution's gold medal for his contributions to the safety of wire ropes used for winding. He joined the South African Association for the Advancement of Science in 1903.

Vaughan retired as Chief Inspector of Machinery around 1925 and for some time practiced as a consulting engineer.

Picture courtesy of Outhwaite and Litherland

QSA (0) (Sto. W. Wedge. H.M.S. Monarch)