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Auction: 26002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 70

China 1900, no clasp (F. W. Taylor, Lg. Sigln., H.M.S. Centurion.), very fine

Purchased Spink, March 1994.

Frederick Watson Taylor was born at Bury, Lancashire on 23 October 1874 and was a clerk by trade upon his joining the Royal Navy in June 1891. Taylor served aboard Ringarooma from May 1894-May 1896 and would have been present when she ran aground on a reef at Makelula Island, New Hebrides on 31 August 1894 and was pulled off by the French cruiser Duchaffault. Remaining on the Australian Station, he thence served aboard the Mildura and Katoomba.

Joining Centurion off the coasts of China from February 1900-April 1901, his Medal was issued to him aboard Victory in January 1903. Remaining in the service until the outbreak of the Great War, he was in the Newmarket as Chief Yeoman of Signals when she was torpedoed and sunk by the U-38 south of Nikaria Island in the Aegean on 17 July 1917. The submarine was under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Alfred Klatt, who scored no less than 32 kills for nearly 39,000 tonnes and took the Iron Cross 1st & 2nd Class for his troubles. Taylor is commemorated upon the Chatham Naval Memorial.


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Estimate
£100 to £140

Starting price
£80