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. Inscription on edge: 'D. JESSE, ORD. H.M.S. AMETHYST 73-74'. [Medals for the Ashanti War slightly thicker than those issued later. Holders of the Ashanti War medal should only have received bars for subsequent wars].

David Jesse (1856-1905) was born in Cardiff, the son of Thomas Jesse a mariner from Cardigan. His mother Ann was widowed in 1870 and left destitute with a young family. Jesse entered the Navy on the 1 January 1873 and served on HMS ‘Amethyst’ from 1873-1878. During late 1873 to early 1874 she carried troops to the coast of present-day Ghana, (at that time the British Gold Coast Protectorate), during the Third Ashanti War. David Jesse’s medal does not have the bar for ‘Coomassie’ (Kumasi). This was only awarded to those in a naval brigade, part of a force under Sir Garnet Wolseley, which crossed the River Pra and marched on the Ashanti capital.
There were many casualties on the British side resulting from warfare, dysentery and malaria. Amethyst’ ferried 110 of the sick and wounded to Ascension Island. By June 1874, the ship was back in Plymouth. Jesse would also have been present during the inconclusive action between HMS ‘Amethyst’, HMS ‘Shah’ and the rebel-held Peruvian ironclad ‘Huáscar’ in 1877. He was in ‘Egeria’ while she conducted surveys around the coast of Australia from 1887 to 1890 under the command of Captain Pelham Aldrich. In 1890 he was promoted to Petty Officer First Class. His last date of service was 2 March 1996. In 1901 he was working as a seaman instructor on HMS ‘Clio’, an industrial training ship based in the Menai Straits. David Jesse died on Anglesey in 1905.