Description
Queen’s South Africa, 4 bars, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, SA 1901, SA 1902, Lieutenant Nesham Ernest Lloyd, 5th Militia Bn Royal Fusiliers, orphan son of a Captain in the 82nd Foot.
Officially hand engraved in typical Officer’s style: “Lieut N.E. Lloyd. Rl: Fus:”
Confirmed on the medal roll, awarded the medal for his service with the first two clasps circa 1901 as 2nd Lieut then Lieut in the 5th Royal Fusiliers, being awarded the two date claps for additional service in late 1902.
Nesham Ernest Lloyd, was born on 11th May 1880 in Exeter, London.
His father was Captain Nesham Yeeden Lloyd, of the 82nd Foot, who had recently been assigned to service in Jamaica where young Nesham was conceived, however sadly his father, the Captain, died at Kingston in Jamaica on 11th September 1879, about 8 months before he was born.
Following the death of his father, his mother Rosa (nee Hull) returned home to England where Nesham was born during 1880.
His mother however would die when he was young, only about 6, during 1886.
This left Nesham as an Orphan, although he was entitled to the Pension of his father, to be raised by his Uncle William Compton Lundie in Littleham, St Thomas, Devon.
His grandfather was John Yeeden Lloyd, born 1796 in Ireland, he became an Engisn in the 73rd Foot and fought with them at Waterloo.
He became an early New Zealand Settler and trained the settlers to fight back against the local natives being called to the Legislative Council.
The Dictionary of NZ Biography recalls:
“LLOYD, JOHN YEEDEN, was born in 1796, and appointed in 1813 an ensign in the 73rd Regiment, with which he served at Waterloo and in Canada. He attained the rank of major (1828) and retired in 1839.
Lloyd arrived in Taranaki by the Kelso in 1849, and took up land at Waireka. When the natives became hostile in 1850, he advised the settlers to drill and offered his services to train them. Major Lloyd was called to the Legislative Council in 1853. He made a strong stand in defence of the rights of Parliament, and resisted the introduction of responsible government lest the government should overrule the representative house. He returned to England about 1856.”
Nesham was first commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant from Gentlemen on 8th May 1899 joining the 4th battalion Devonshire Regiment (Militia)
On 27th May 1901, he then joined the the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), as an Officer of the 5th Battalion of Militia, aka the Royal Westminster Militia.
At the time, the 5th Royal Fusiliers had just returned home from the Boer War and were due to return there once more, being embodied on 6th May 1901, he joined just in time, the 5th Royal Fusiliers landing in South Africa on 27th June.
He returned home as an invalid during March 1902.
After finishing out his time in the Army, he married Ellen Mabel Valentine in Somerton, Somerset, on 12th November 1903.
He is later shown on the 1911 Census with his father in law, Surgeon Edmund William Valentine, Nesham is listed as “No Occupation, Private Means”, likely living off his pay from his time in the Army coupled with the pension of his late father.
He later remarried to Edith Constance Morris during 1935 in Upton.
He died on 19th March 1946 in Upton upon Severn, Worcestershire.
