Queens South Africa Medal clasps Cape Colony, Rhodesia, Orange Free State, Transvaal & South Africa 1901 engraved naming LT & ADJT A R J DEWAR N ZEA CONT. Good very fine and confimed on rolls.
Arthur Robert Johnstone Dewar was born at Hydrabad, Bombay on 11th Oct 1869, the son of Caroline and Colonel James Dewar, Royal Artillery. The family returned to Britain from India in 1870 with Dewar's sister being born in the Bay of Biscay.
Educated in a small school at 11 Warwick Terrace, St. Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings he attended Queen's College, Cambridge before somewhat unusually attesting for the Gordon Highlanders as a Private on 27 September 1889 after failing his officers exams. Seeing Home service for 5 years, Dewar was discharged on 11 March 1895 and settled on the Isle of Wight.
He made his way to Rhodesia. Enlisting in ‘B’ Troop of the Mashonaland Mounted Police, he gained advancement to Corporal and participated in the famous Jameson Raid in 1895-96 - captured by the Boers at Doornkop, he was among those repatriated to England in the Harlech Castle in January of the latter year.
He next made his way to New Zealand, where he settled in Wanganui and, in May 1897, enlisted in the New Zealand Defence Force. He subsequently attested for the 5th N.Z. Contingent for service in South Africa and, having been quickly commissioned as Lieutenant, was embarked in the S.S. Waimate in Mar 1900. He was present in the operations in Rhodesia and the Transvaal, including the actions at Malmani on 18th Aug 1900 and at Kaffir Kraal on 24th Oct 1900, and was appointed Adjutant of the 5th New Zealand Mounted Rifles (Imperial Bushmen) at the end of the same year. Having then seen further action in Orange Free State and Cape Colony, he was embarked for England, where he received his Queen’s South Africa Medal from King Edward VII at a special ceremony held at Marlborough House in Jul 1901.
Dewar next set sail for the Far East, where he was appointed a Local Lieutenant in in the Malay States Guides in Apr 1902. Later in the same year, he became Adjutant of the Selangor Volunteers and, in May 1903, a Superintendent of Prisons. In Aug of the same year, he was appointed Lt in the 5th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, seconded to the Malay Guides, in which capacity he gained advancement to Capt in May 1906. Having about this time moved to Singapore to take up appointment as a Superintendent of Police, he held the same rank successively in Penang (Mar 1910), and Malacca (Aug 1911), prior to being appointed Second Superintendent of Police in Singapore in Jul 1912. During the Great War, he faced many challenges, among them the mutiny of Feb 1915, when he was serving as Major and Commandant of the Sikh Police. In 1916, he became Superintendent of Police in Penang and his final appointment appears to have been his term in office as Major and Commandant of Police at Labuan in the Malay Straits in the mid-1920s.
Provenance DNW 2016 Ex-Barret J Carr collection.
