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Auction: 23003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 48

The Well-Documented and Rare Uganda Campaign medal to Miss Bertha Taylor, Church Missionary Society, one of only eight ladies to receive the Medal and whose adventurous life was also marred by tragedy: her fiancé, George Pilkington (widely known as 'Pilkington of Uganda'), was killed during the Sudanese mutiny of 1897

East and West Africa 1897-99, 1 clasp, Uganda 1897-98 (Miss B. Taylor), very fine

Provenance: John Tamplin Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, September 2003.

Bertha Taylor is confirmed upon the Roll as one of only eight ladies to receive this Medal and Clasp, an additional annotation stating: 'Attended the Wounded'.
Taylor was born circa 1867, daughter of Frederick Taylor of Manchester. She was educated and received her training at The Willows and Mildmay Hospital in Bethnal Green, London from 1893. She was accepted by the Church Missionary Society in February 1896, and departed the following September for the Uganda Mission. Initially stationed at Mengo, she arrived at Kampala in February 1897. In May 1897 she became engaged to George Lawrence Pilkington, a Missionary already in Uganda working for the Church Missionary Society. Sadly, the marriage never took place as Pilkington was killed only seven months later, during the Sudanese uprising on 11 December 1897. In a fortitude so evident in these early Missionaries, Miss Taylor clearly put such personal tragedy to one side and participated in the operations to suppress the uprising, the 'Remarks' column on the Medal Roll specifically stating: 'Attended the Wounded' - she was one of only eight ladies to do so.

In May 1898, Bertha Taylor was moved to Gayaza, and in January 1901 she married Harry Edward Maddox in the Cathedral at Namirembe in Uganda. Maddox was also a Missionary with the Church Missionary Society in Uganda and was ordained a Deacon in 1908. He served during the Great War, firstly in the ranks of the R.A.M.C. and then as a Chaplain with the Army Chaplains’ Department, winning the Military Cross for gallantry in attending to wounded under fire. He relinquished his commission in November 1917, and became Rector of Lymm in Cheshire until 1924. They lived at Brookhurst, Alderley Edge, Cheshire. Bertha Maddox (née Taylor) died at Alderley Edge on 24 October 1950. Her husband, the Revd. H. E. Maddox, M.C., died at Macclesfield on 17 July 1951.

Sold together with a large and comprehensive file of copied research (including extracts from contemporary publications mentioning the recipient by name); a copy of extracts from her personal Journal, as related to 'The Church and Missionary Gleaner' of March 1897; two copied photographs featuring Miss Taylor; and an original copy of 'Pilkington of Uganda' by C.F. Harford-Battersby. The recipient additionally features in an article by W.J. Ulrich in the Autumn 1975 edition of the Orders and Medals Research Society Journal, a copy of which is included amongst the above-mentioned research.

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Sold for
£2,100

Starting price
£1200