Beschreibung:

The exceptional Boer War D.S.O., Great War O.B.E. group of six awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel R. V. K. Applin, 14th Hussars, formerly a District Officer with the British North Borneo Company during the Syed and Mat Salleh rebellions of 1895-97, one of many interesting chapters in his life to be related in his autobiography Across the Seven Seas: a machine-gun expert who commanded the machine-guns of the 2nd ANZACs at the battles of Messines, Passchendaele and 3rd Ypres in 1916-17, he later confided that he had ‘found out in 1904 all that the Germans taught us at such a cost in human lives in 1914, and which culminated in 1917 at Messines, when our 280 machine-guns, firing over the heads of our attacking infantry, rained one hundred thousand bullets a minute upon the German trenches with terrible effect’ Distinguished Service Order, V.R., silver-gilt and enamels; The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1919; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901(Capt. R. V. K. Applin, Lanc. Fus.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. Col. R. V. K. Applin); British North Borneo Company Medal, silver, clasp, Punitive Expedition (R. V. K. Applin, Supt. N.B.C.), this last excessively rare, wreaths and lower arm of D.S.O. chipped, otherwise nearly very fine or better (6) £6000-7000 Footnote D.S.O. London Gazette 31 October 1902: ‘In recognition of services during the operations in South Africa.’ O.B.E. London Gazette 12 December 1919. Reginald Vincent Kempenfelt Applin was born at Alphington, Devon on 11 April 1869, the eldest son of Captain V. J. Applin, a veteran of the Crimean and China Wars. He was educated at Newton College and Sherborne. Clearly well-connected, young Reginald’s early ambitions to take to the stage got off to a promising start: ‘The Baroness Burdett-Coutts gave me an introduction to Henry Irving, and I wanted to walk-on at the Lyceum. He turned me over to Bram Stoker, his manager, and while waiting for a vacancy, I had the good fortune to see Irving and Ellen Terry in all their famous impersonations, for Bram Stoker never refused me a seat, however crowded the theatre.’ In fact, he passed his interview and was sent by Irving to tour the provinces as Cassio in Othello, Gratiano in The Merchant of Venice and Trinculo in The Tempest. His father, however, was anxious that his son ‘should do something better than mime the footlights’ and a family friend, a colonial administrator, suggested that he apply to the British North Borneo Company. And so, on his 21st birthday, he found himself ‘busy getting my outfit for the tropics and buying rifles and a 44 Colt revolver’. He was duly embarked in the P. & O. steamer Oceana. North Borneo Applin commenced his career as a Cadet in December 1889: ’I now found myself established in a small community of Britons cut off from civilisation by a thousand miles of sea, and with the task of opening up a new and unexposed country of tropical forests, savage tribes and wild animals, thus adding one more territory to the British Empire … My three months’ probation at Sandakan soon passed, and I was appointed to Kudat on the West Coast.’ He subsequently gained appointment as a Police Magistrate and J.P. for Crown Colony, Labuan, 1894 and District Officer, Interior, 1897. He served through the Syed and Mat Salleh rebellions of 1895-97 as a Captain Superintendent (Medal & clasp; one of about 12 awarded), and twice received the thanks of the Company’s Board of Directors for services against the Tumnunam tribes. His autobiography is largely devoted to his time in North Borneo and contains a fascinating array of stories, one of which recounts an early outing with a Corporal and four Sikhs, charged with tracking down a pair of murderers. Much of the journey was undertaken by canoe. The operation was a success and, having handed over his two