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. Bars: 'COOMASSIE'. Inscription on edge: 'J. FLETCHER BOMBR. R.M.A. H.M.S. ACTIVE 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].

Bombadier Joseph Fletcher (1842-1920) was born in Bampton, Oxfordshire, the son of a farm labourer. He served in the Royal Marine Artillery from 1863 to 1876, being rated as gunner in the 1871 census. He was on the books of HMS ‘Active’ during 1873-4 taking part in the battle of Amoaful and the march on and burning of Coomassie (present day Kumasi in Ghana) during the third Anglo-Ashanti War. After leaving the RMA, he worked as a domestic porter in St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Rochester. He never married and died in the Medway Union workhouse in 1920.