Description
Queens Sudan – 1st battalion Royal Warwick regiment.
Queens Sudan, 4390, Pte W. Sheldon, 1/R. War.R.
William Sheldon was born in Birmingham in 1876.
He enlisted on the 7th November 1894 serving at home to the 5th November 1895, Malta to 20th January 1897, Egypt to 17th October 1898, East Indies to 26th February 1903, home to 6th November 1906.
This medal and his entitlement to the Khedives medal with Atbara clasp are confirmed in his service papers and on medal rolls.
Between January 1897 and October 1898, the 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment served as a key infantry unit in the Anglo-Egyptian Reconquest of the Sudan.
On 21 January 1897, the battalion embarked from Malta and disembarked in Egypt on 24 January. They spent the remainder of 1897 garrisoned in Egypt preparing for campaign duty. In January 1898, as Kitchener mobilized his forces to push south into Mahdist-controlled territory, the 1st Warwicks were ordered into the Sudan. Commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Morey Quayle Jones the battalion joined Major-General William Gatacre’s British Brigade alongside the Cameron Highlanders, Seaforth Highlanders, and the Lincoln Regiment.
The Battle of Atbara (April 1898)
On 8 April 1898, the battalion fought in the Battle of Atbara. Positioned on the front line, the Warwicks stormed the heavily defended Mahdist zeriba—a dense barricade of thorn bushes—at the confluence of the Nile and Atbara Rivers. In under an hour of intense combat, British and Egyptian forces overran the position and routed the army of Mahmoud Ahmad. Through the sweltering summer months, the battalion encamped along the Nile at positions such as El Sillem, preparing for the advance on the Mahdist capital.
On 2 September 1898, the battalion participated in the decisive Battle of Omdurman. Arrayed in Gatacre’s 1st British Brigade, the Warwicks helped hold the perimeter defensive arc along the Nile, delivering sustained rifle fire and Maxim gun support that crushed massed Mahdist charges.
Following the fall of Omdurman and the liberation of Khartoum, the battalion returned down the Nile to Cairo. On 18 October 1898, the 1st Battalion embarked from Egypt for India, successfully concluding its campaign in Northeastern Africa.
Condition – VF
