Description
Sudan Medal 1898, Khedives Sudan, bar Khartoum, 11559 Rupert Coppendale Busher, Royal Army Medical Corps. Present at the Battle of Omdurman and early Boer War battles.
Sudan Officially engraved: “11559 Pte R. Busher. R.A.M.C.”
Khedive’s Engraved: “11559 R. Busher R.A.M.C.”
Both confirmed on the medal roll.
With copy service papers.
For his additional service during the Boer War from 1899-1902, he would earn the Queen and King’s South Africa Medals, with clasps for Belmont, Modder River, Wittebergen and Transvaal.
Rupert Coppendale Busher was born in Bermondsey, St Olave, Southwark, London during 1875.
The son of Henry and Sarah Busher, his father was a Customs Official and Lightermans Clerk.
Aged 21, Rupert was a Barman when he first joined the Militia of the Medical Staff Corps on 18th August 1897, having previously been a member of the 4th Militia Bn Royal West Surrey Regiment.
After only about 2 months he enlisted for full time service with the Medical Staff Corps, what the RAMC was known as at the time.
He saw the following service:
Attested as Private, 7th Oct 1897
Passed out the Training School, Medical Staff Corps at Aldershot, 23rd Dec 1897.
Appointed, 3rd Class Orderly, 4th Jan 1898.
Appointed, 2nd Class Orderly, 1st June 1900
Appointed, 1st Class Orderly, 1st March 1901.
22nd April 1904, Appointed to the Nursing Section.
Transferred to Army Reserve, 6th October 1905
Discharged after finishing his terms of service, 6th October 1909.
Home, 7th October 1897 – 12th July 1898
Egypt, 13th July 1898 – 28th October 1898
Home, 29th October 1898 – 20th Oct 1899
South Africa 21st Oct 1899 – 3rd Nov 1902
Home, 4th Nov 1902 – 6th October 1909.
Campaigns Fought: “Nile Expedition 1898, South Africa 1899-1902”
Medals from his papers: “Soudan (Khedive’s) 1898, Clasp Khartoum 1898
South African (Queens) and Kings, Belmont, Modder River, Wittebergen, Transvaal, Kings and Clasps 1901-1902”
Following his return and retirement from the Army he instead of returning to London set off north for Sheffield, Yorkshire, where he would live out the rest of his life.
On 1st August 1910, 36 year old Bachelor Robert, married Elizabeth Jenson, a Widow and Sheffield local, at the Parish Church in St Cuthbert, Sheffield.
Shown living with his wife in the 1911 Census, as a Yard Labourer at a Steel Foundry.
By 1921 he was still living in Sheffield, working as a Platers Labourer for Locomotive Boilers, for the Yorkshire Enginer Co Ltd, Locomotive Builders on Meadowhall Road, Sheffield.
His brother had come up from London to live with him and his wife.
He died in Sheffield on 7th September 1939, the Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 8th Sept 1939 noting his death:
“DEATHS, BUSHER, Rupert Coppendale, the dearly beloved husband of Elizabeth, died on 7th Sept, of 46 Jenkin Road, Brightside. Service 1 o’clock St Margaret’s, Saturday, internment at Burngreave.”
You can view his gravestone here:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/265341268/ernest-martin-busher
