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Auction: 23002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 161

(x) The rare group of four awarded to Seaman F. W. Kemp, Royal Naval Reserve, who served as Fireman aboard the relief ship Morning in Captain Scott’s First Antarctic Expedition

British War and Mercantile Marine War Medals (Frederick W. Kemp); Polar Medal 1904, E.VII.R., bronze, no clasp (F. Kemp “Morning” 1902-4); Royal Naval Reserve L.S. & G.C., E.VII.R. (C.4003 F. W. Kemp, Sean. 1 Cl, R.N.R.), the third a little polished, otherwise very fine (4)

Provenance:
Sotheby's, 1987 & DNW, December 2014 (The Polar Medal & Royal Naval Reserve L.S. & G.C.).
Morton & Eden, November 2012 (the Great War Pair).

Frederick William Kemp served on both Antarctic voyages as a fireman on the steam yacht Morning in 1902-03 and 1903-04. He was born in Yarmouth on 25 November 1858. Very little is known of his early life but he married Annie Gwendolyne Monday on 1 March 1879 and they had 7 children, whilst an obituary in the Hull Daily Mail reports they had 17 children!

A merchant seaman working out of Hull with the whaling fleet, he chose to reduce his age by five years when he signed on the Morning at a rate of £5 pounds per calendar month. Immediately prior to his joining the Morning he had served on the steam ship Montebello whose crew formed the nucleus of the Morning's crew. They included William Colbeck who was appointed Captain, Alfred Buchanan Cheetham (boatswain), Joseph Hancock (cook) and Able Seamen Francis William Burton, William Hender and George Robert William Leary. The Morning was sent out with supplies for the Discovery during the first summer of the Expedition, but due to adverse weather conditions these had to be sledged across the ice to Scott’s team. The Morning made a second voyage to the Discovery in January 1904, when it was feared that the latter vessel would be trapped in the ice, but fortunately this was not the case and she was able to make her own way back to New Zealand. Kemp was duly discharged from Morning at Plymouth on 18 October 1904, upon her return to England. Kemp is featured in the 1904 crew photograph taken in Lyttleton, New Zealand.

He saw active service with the Merchant Navy during the Great War and died at Hull on 28 December 1938.

An article on his career featured in the Journal of the Orders & Medals Research Society, December 2016, Volume 55, No. 4.

Subject to 5% tax on Hammer Price in addition to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium.

Sold for
£6,000

Starting price
£3500