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Auction: 19001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 716

An interesting Great War group of four awarded to Major A. W. Reid, East African Railway Transport Service, a Uganda settler and railway official

Having attracted the wrath of the Railway Committee for being one of eight officials found to have treated their subordinates with 'extreme discourtesy and tyranny', he rose to greater things and was commended for his 'good service' during the ongoing construction of Uganda's railways in 1903

Subsequently employed as Treasurer of the East African Turf Club and Manager of The International Hotel at Nairobi, he lent valuable service as a Railway Officer during the Great War

1914-15 Star (Major A. W. Reid, E. Afr. Ry. T.D.); British War and Victory Medals (Major A. W. Reid); Royal Humane Society's Medal, bronze (Arthur William Read, 24 August 1885), complete with top buckle, good very fine or better (4)

Arthur William Reid was awarded the RHS Bronze Medal (Case No. 22894) as a Solicitor's Clerk in Leicester before his arrival in Uganda in August 1897, when he took up appointment as an Assistant Locomotive Superintendent (Stores). In May 1899, he departed Mombasa for the U.K. via Zanzibar, likely as a consequence of an impending Railway Committee report in which he was cited as having treated his subordinates with 'extreme discourtesy and tyranny'. The report was published in March 1900 and makes for interesting reading - copy included - a string of employees having been dismissed under false pretences and two of them for being 'Useless'.

On his return to Uganda, Reid was appointed an Acting Chief Storekeeper and, in April 1903, a Chief Storekeeper on the Permanent Staff of the opened railway line on a salary of £500 per annum. He was subsequently commended for 'good service' and otherwise occupied himself as Treasurer of the East African Turf Club and as Manager of The International Hotel at Nairobi.

With the outbreak of hostilities, his earlier experiences on the railways led to his appointment as a Major in the East African Railway Transport Department.

Reid retired to Leicester and died in 1957; sold with an original War Office letter advising him about the order of wear of his Royal Humane Society award, together with an extensive file of copied research, including a fine array of copied images of the Uganda railway.


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Sold for
£380