A rare Bluejacket's campaign group of four awarded to Captain F. W. Dean, Royal Navy, who...

A rare Bluejacket’s campaign group of four awarded to Captain F. W. Dean, Royal Navy, who was mentioned in despatches for his services in the Witu operations in 1890, and twice again for his services ashore in the Boer War, when his gallantry in the action at Graspan won him special promotion to Commander

East and West Africa 1887-1900, 1 clasp, Witu 1890 (Sub. Lieut. F. W. Dean. R.N. H.M.S. Redbreast.); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Belmont, Modder River, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Relief of Kimberley, clasps mounted in this order (Lieut: F. W. Dean, R.N. H.M.S. Monarch) impressed naming; Khedive’s Sudan 1896-1908, no clasp, unnamed as issued; Royal Humane Society, small bronze medal (successful), (Lieut. F. W. Dean, R.N., 18th December 1893.) complete with integral brooch buckle, pin removed, mounted court-style for display together with an erased 1914-15 Star trio, nearly extremely fine (7) £2,400-£2,800
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Importation Duty
This lot is subject to importation duty of 5% on the hammer price unless exported outside the UK
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Provenance: Alan Hall Collection, June 2000.

Frederick William Dean was born in Newburn, near Swindon on 20 July 1868, and entered the Royal Navy as a Cadet in the training ship Britannia in January 1882. Appointed a Midshipman in October 1884, he was advanced to Sub Lieutenant aboard H.M.S. Calypso in October 1888. Having then obtained a 1st Class Certificate in Seamanship, he was appointed for navigational duties in the Redbreast on the East Indies station in February 1890. And in October of the same year he was landed for service with the Naval Brigade sent to punish the Sultan of Witu for the massacre of a party of Europeans. Here, then, the backdrop to his first mention in despatches, Vice-Admiral Sir Edmund Fremantle reporting that he ‘acted as Orderly Officer to myself and Captain Curzon-Howe and was most zealous and active.’ (London Gazette 6 January 1891, refers).
Promoted to Lieutenant in January 1892, Dean gained further navigational experience in the Hearty and the Gleaner, prior to seeing active service in the Scout off the coast of Sudan in 1896, for which he received the Khedive’s Medal, without clasp. And in the following year he received his first command, the Sparrowhawk, on the North American station.
But it was not until joining the Monarch as her Senior Lieutenant in January 1899 that he embarked on the most distinguished chapter of his career, namely his command of naval guns ashore during the opening phases of the Boer War. Such was the prominence of his role in the action at Graspan in November 1899, that he submitted his own report for publication in Admiral Sir Robert Harris’s despatch. And that report eventually appeared in the London Gazette on 30 March 1900, from which the following extract has been taken:
‘ … I then waited until the Royal Artillery with six guns took up a position on my right front and opened fire on the enemy. I did the same, and subsequently advanced to ranges of 4,000 yards and ultimately 2,800 yards, acting from time to time on requests I received from the officer commanding Royal Artillery, who was attacking the same position, viz., two strongly fortified kopjes on either side of the railway with a well protected gun in each.
About 8 a.m. I received verbal orders to retire from my position, as the Royal Artillery were about to move away to the right, and it would then be untenable for my two guns. The Royal Artillery were already moving off when I got the order, and the Boer guns, having got our range, were pouring on us such an effective shrapnel fire, that I judged it impossible to carry out the order without either leaving the guns or suffering very heavy losses, both amongst our own men and the company of Royal Engineers who were helping us, if we attempted to retreat with them.
I, therefore, continued to fire as briskly as possible at the Boer guns, with such effect that we continuously put them out of action, for as much as 15 or 20 minutes at a time. Their shells burst with utmost accuracy, and both our guns and ammunition trolly were spattered all over with shrapnel balls; but, owing to my system of making all hands lie down when we saw their guns flash and remain until the shell burst and the balls flew by, we had only six men wounded when, at 9.30 a.m., the Boers finally ceased firing and abandoned position … ’
Dean was himself specially mentioned by Captain A. E. Merchant, R.M.L.I., who assumed command of the Naval Brigade when his senior officers were killed or wounded:
‘Lieutenant F. Dean who was in command of 4 Naval guns behaved with great gallantry in a very exposed position which was commanded by the enemy and where they were subjected to heavy artillery fire which proved so accurate as to wound 6 men of the guns crews.’
He was again mentioned in Lieutenant Ogilvy’s report to Captain Jones, dated at Ladysmith on 1 March 1900, which brought to notice the uniform good conduct of the officers and men who had been under his immediate command during the operations ending in the Relief of Ladysmith:
‘Lieutenant F. W. Dean, who is now in hospital, I consider worthy of special mention, more especially so as I am sure that his unremitting hard work was largely the cause of his going down when attacked by dysentery.’
Yet further recognition followed in Lord Roberts’s despatch of 31 March 1900, in which Dean was ‘specially promoted to Commander for services with Naval Brigade in South Africa, Admiralty, 2 May 1900.’
The action at Graspan aside, Dean had also commanded his guns at Modder River on 28 November 1899, at the relief of Kimberley on 15 February 1900, at Paardeberg on 17-26 February 1900, and Driefontein on 10 March 1900. Invalided to hospital in the following month, he was embarked in the S.S. Cymric for the U.K. in May 1900.
Appointed to the command of Tamar in March 1902, the receiving ship in Hong Kong, he returned home in the summer of 1904 and, following further commands, attended a variety of courses, among them the Senior Officers’ War Course at Portsmouth.
Of his subsequent appointments in the Great War, which encompassed the cruiser Sutlej in the opening months of the conflict and of Devonport’s gunnery school as an Acting Captain, it was his command of the armed merchant cruiser Hilary that proved the most memorable: she was sunk by the U-88 west of the Shetlands on 25 May 1917.
Dean was placed on the Retired List in the rank of Captain at his own request in May 1919; his services were recognised by the award of the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal, the whereabouts of which remain unknown.
Earlier, in mid-February 1894, he had been awarded the Royal Humane Society's Bronze Medal for saving the life of Ordinary Seaman William Ringland of the Resolution, who fell into the sea whilst his ship was underway. The next ship astern, the Gleaner, aboard which Dean was serving, saw the incident and tried to lower a boat; this was ineffective and so Dean jumped overboard in full uniform and held the man up for ten minutes until a boat arrived.

Sold with copied research including record of service and London Gazette extracts,