COMPASS VESTA CASE WITH A DIFFERENCE

Purchased this yesterday, not because it was a vesta case but because it had a working compass on one side and the initials F.V. 18th Hussars enscribed on the other.
Now the battle starts to track down the owner.
Pieces like this really intrique me, as the owners when this was enscribed and particularly as its solid silver, would have been fairly wealthy, so one has to assume it belonged to an officer. Hopefully with V surname, easy to trace in a small Cavalry Regiment who fought at Balaclava.
I'll keep you updated if I find the original owner,

The date hallmark should help, but is it "F.J." or "F.V." or even "F.I."?

That is the question...........any enscribers out their or lithograph experts on old characters it would very helpful?
I have asked their Regimental museum for help to identify the perosn if the right initials are followed of course!

The case was owned by SQUADRON SERGEANT MAJOR 3542 F. STENSON of A Squadron 18th Hussars, formed in 1858 and disbanded in 1902.
SSM Stenson fought predominantly in the Boer War 1899-1902 on return from Africa.
He was discharged on the 18th December 1912 it is not known what Regiment he was in when he did.

Amazing when you ask the right people a question on our British Regimental history what comes back.

"S" - now there's one that didn't occur!

What's the date hallmark? A compass for use on the veldt perhaps?

The use of the eszett for "ss" is a rather peculiar affectation, though the "cavalwy" was certainly the place for affectations and those disposed thereto! :lol:

Wiki says they were amalgamated with the 13th Hussars in 1922 by the way.

Quote:

---

"In the Battle of Talana Hill, on 20 October, part of the regiment was cut off by Boer forces and about 249 officers and men, including Lieutenant Colonel Bernhardt Möller, were taken prisoner"

---

A connection with the eszett matter perhaps?

Yes the 18th went on through 1914-18 merging as it went.
It was a local Light Dragoon Officer who gave me his opinion which changed things slightly. He knew that Officers of the Boer War had silver snuff boxes and those that could afford it had matches and cigarettes, normally SNCO's.
Interesting when someone who knew his Regimental history comes along and fills some gaps on etiquette back then.;)

The maker is a silversmiths named Zimmerman.

The silver stamps tell a tale on their own, I found the Lion and the border means it was made in Birmingham and hope someone on here can read the full date story from the stamps for me.:thup:

Here and here.

You can see they don't have that Zimmerman mark listed, though it seems to be the most common.

As for the date, it looks like 1900 to me. So, Stenson may have done some act which was felt worthy of a private recognition?

There was a bit of a fuss made about a troop of B Squadron who escaped the trap that Lt. Col. Möller led the rest of them into at Glencoe/Talana Hill. Stenson might have been one of those, but not as a senior NCO presumably as he is not mentioned whereas another is. He might still have been a corporal (or cavalry equivalent) at that point.

In this book Stenson is shown as in B Squadron.

Apparently there was an inquiry and Lt. Col. Möller was "acquitted", but Lord Roberts decided he was not to be given another command after his release. By the time he died in 1918 he had become just "Bernard Moller". ;)

Surpmill,
Thanks for that. I have tried to copy/print that page of the book where it shows he was wounded on the 8th December 1899. Do you hold the book and can copy me that page so I can try and find out which battle they all appeared to get injured in on that day please. All I could do was enlarge it and take a snapshot on my phone and send it to myself in the normal way;)

I don't have the book, it's a scan held at Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Wayback Machine.

There's nothing in the nominal roll on p.267 that suggests he was wounded and he's not mentioned anywhere else according to the search engine on that site. The roll is a bit confusing but if one goes back to the first page it is stated to be a list of all those who served in S.A. and the blanks after names thus indicate no record rather than a "ditto" effect.

As far as I can see Stenson came through unscathed. He must have been lucky or smart enough to avoid dirty water or other contaminations that led to the "enteric fever" which killed about as many as combat.

Around this time the Japanese were getting very interested in those famous (Royal) Doulton ceramic water filters which the WO seems to have overlooked - and which are still in use today of course. Gen. Ishi of Unit 731 infamy got his start in this field IIRC. The Japanese eventually found ways to pump the water through the filter media rather than just using gravity feed which increased the output enough to make it useful in the field.

But getting back to Stenson, I found no clear trace of him after the war. If you can access records of the 18th through the museum of The Royal Hussars or whatever the successor regiment is, you might find out what became of him. The fact that such an object was still in the UK suggests he didn't emigrate, but it's also the kind of thing that was often "sent home" to relations when an emigrant died somewhere abroad.

(Many keyboards have a "print screen" key which temporarily saves a "screen shot", which can then be pasted directly into MS Paint or another image manipulation program for further editing and saving under whatever name one chooses.)

Here's the real story: 48 men KIA or DoW and 49 dead of disease.

214 sent home due to disease!

That was the true scandal of the war.

Thanks for all of that hard work.
I have indeed emailed a Roberta Goldsmith, Curator of the Light Dragoons Museum who will respond when she is back at work. She came back to me initially and told to look at Ancestry.com which I know has the bearest of details on it, ie medals and name, it also had his first name missing just showed an F so I asked her for that specifically so I could search for his grave and that might throw up more info.
Anyway, thansk so far and I'll keep you updated;)

It was nothing but fun and the work of minutes!

With the first name and initial at least it would be much easier to track him down, definitely.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Surpmil

Here's the real story: 48 men KIA or DoW and 49 dead of disease.

214 sent home due to disease!

That was the true scandal of the war.

---

Correction: '214 sent home due to wounds or disease!'

Remember too, that this was decades before the discovery of penicillin. Antibiotics had not been discovered. Back then, diseases such as malaria,, typhus, cholera, and dysentery were common, particularly in military camps in which hygiene was often 'spotty'.

A true perspective of 'disease casualty rates' and the advancement of military medicine and sanitation comes from looking at the numbers and percentages from the Crimean War and the US Civil War, and then WWI and WWII.

I note nothing mentioned about sexually transmitted diseases, but those in themselves took tally for many a soldier abroad. I saw close up a Doctors kit from those times, and blimey not something you would want to use, without a general aneasthetic.
Reminds me as a young soldier being played the Syphillis video from the U.S. on men returning from Vietnam, whilst we were in Malaya, no comparison I know, but it was meant to shock us, and it certainly had an effect.
I went straight down to Jahore Bahru that night with a bunch of mates and had a bloody good massage!:thup:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Paul S.

Correction: '214 sent home due to wounds or disease!'

Remember too, that this was decades before the discovery of penicillin. Antibiotics had not been discovered. Back then, diseases such as malaria,, typhus, cholera, and dysentery were common, particularly in military camps in which hygiene was often 'spotty'.

A true perspective of 'disease casualty rates' and the advancement of military medicine and sanitation comes from looking at the numbers and percentages from the Crimean War and the US Civil War, and then WWI and WWII.

---

Good catch on the numbers, but the diagnosis remains the same: generalized obtusity and catastrophic unpreparedness.

As for military camps, very topical considering the 1918-19 "Spanish Flu" and it's mysterious origins: one interesting theory. It may or may well not be relevant, but there were about 100,000 men of the Chinese Labour Corps in France IIRC.

Certainly there has been a slow continuum of improvement since the US Civil War for example. At the same time, I'm personally convinced that there are many herbals that are highly effective, and as far as war was concerned sadly a great many men and limbs could probably have been saved that weren't.

I don't believe the authorities ever accepted the fact, but there's plenty of evidence that malaria was found in certain regions of NW France in 1917-18 and maybe earlier. It's been suggested it came with the Indian Army Corps in 1915, but there were so many British reservists who had served in India there as well probably no one could say where it came from.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Surpmil

Good catch on the numbers, but the diagnosis remains the same: generalized obtusity and catastrophic unpreparedness.

As for military camps, very topical considering the 1918-19 "Spanish Flu" and it's mysterious origins: one interesting theory. It may or may well not be relevant, but there were about 100,000 men of the Chinese Labour Corps in France IIRC.

Certainly there has been a slow continuum of improvement since the US Civil War for example. At the same time, I'm personally convinced that there are many herbals that are highly effective, and as far as war was concerned sadly a great many men and limbs could probably have been saved that weren't.

I don't believe the authorities ever accepted the fact, but there's plenty of evidence that malaria was found in certain regions of NW France in 1917-18 and maybe earlier. It's been suggested it came with the Indian Army Corps in 1915, but there were so many British reservists who had served in India there as well probably no one could say where it came from.

---

RE: Malaria -- One needs to remember that there were also African troops serving with the British and French forces. Much of the ANZAC in 1916 had just come from Egypt, Gallipoli, and Palestine as well. Some BEF battalions (regulars) also had been on service in India and elsewhere before going to France. As for AEF, the late arrivals, Malaria, while not common, was also a problem in the US at that, pre-DDT, time.

Regarding the Japanese copies of the Royal Doulton ceramic water filters, I happened to take this still from a video of diving in Truk Lagoon. The object on the left which resembles a stoneware jar is clearly labelled "...Filter..." So there it is in the flesh. Looks like the maker is "Okano & Co. Ltd." Obviously they were exporting them before the war.

Is nothing sacred :lol:
Nice image mate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Surpmil

diving in Truk Lagoon

---

I've seen that vid too. Fascinating stuff.