East & West Africa Medal 1887-99

Obverse: Head of Queen Victoria in a diadem and veil (left). Legend: 'VICTORIA REGINA'. Reverse: a group of soldiers and Africans fighting in the bush for their fallen comrades. Suspended from a bar, and yellow ribbon with a broad black edge and two narrow black central stripes. Bars: 'JUBA RIVER 1893'. Inscription on edge: 'J. DENHAM, A.B., H.M.S. BLANCHE'.

John James Denham was born in 1866, in Southsea, Hampshire, the son of John Denham, a naval seaman and his wife Sarah Ann. He joined the Royal Navy as a boy 2nd class on the 21 January 1882. After completing training in early 1884, he left via Malta to join ‘Euryalus’ the flagship of William Nathan Wright Hewett VC on the East India station. She was at that time deployed in Egyptian waters during operations in the Sudan. Now an ordinary seaman, he transferred to ‘Osprey’ in August the same year and continued to serve in the Indian Ocean, until she was paid off in Bombay in April 1886. Back in Britain in August, Denham was on the books of ‘Northampton’ coastguard ship at Southampton until he was paid off in November 1886. He then joined ‘Cordelia’ which left for the China Station in February the following year. He remained in the Far East, mainly in ‘Cordelia’ until 1890. She was part of a squadron cruising off the north eastern coast of Asia where Russian ambitions were causing concern. On 10th July 1888, the captains of the squadron, including Henry Harvey Boys of Cordelia, received an audience with the Emperor of Japan. During the latter part of 1890, now back in England, Denham was in HMS ‘Active’, flagship of the training squadron. He was then employed on the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station in ‘Raleigh’, ‘Blanche’ and ‘Penelope’ receiving the East & West Africa Medal with the bar for Juba River’ 23 – 25 August 1893. This was two-day expedition during which, Lieutenant P. Vaughan Lewes and forty volunteers from ‘Blanche’ rescued two European captives, taken during a Somali attack on Kismayo.

Denham left the Royal Navy at the end of his ten years of service on 6 July 1894, rated able seaman. In the 1901 census, he is in Farnborough working as a groom and boarding with William Matthews, a fairground roundabout proprietor. His date of death is not currently known.