Obverse, a portrait of Queen Victoria with veil and sceptre |
Reverse, Victory seated on a dais that bears the inscription and is supported by three lilies; she holds a laurel wreath and a palm branch and sits before crossed standards |
The political disintegration of the Ottoman Egyptian state during the 1880s, as it came under heavy British and French influence, permitted a rebellion in the name of the self-proclaimed Mahdi Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad ibn al-Sayyid 'Abd Allah to effect the removal of the Sudan from Egyptian control. Lengthy campaigns by British forces to recover control of the area led firstly to Gordon's famous defeat at Khartoum and ultimately, in 1890, to a full British withdrawal from the province.
In 1896, however, British and Egyptian forces combined in a campaign of reconquest, which in a series of engagements between then and 1899 eventually laid the area back under Egyptian, and therefore British, control. In 1899 Queen Victoria agreed the issue of the Queen's Sudan Medal for service in any of the first six battles of these campaigns.
This medal was awarded to Private G. Palmer of the 1st Battalion, Cameron Highlanders. Lester Watson purchased it at some point before 1928.