Carved and decorated Oom-Paul smoking pipe : Lance Corporal E C Barnes, Royal Army Medical Corps

Oom-Paul style pipe with full bent neck, vulcanite stem, pierced brass hinged chamber cover and brass stem collar. The front of the bowl has been carved 'E.C.B / BOER WAR / 1900-01' within a shield shape and the words 'SOUTH AFRICA' on a pair of flanking scrolls. A small stamped gold thistle appears on the lower left of the bowl stem. The chamber is lined with tobacco residue.

Souvenir Oom-Paul style pipe related to the service of 13854 Lance Corporal Edward Charles Barnes in South Africa in 1900/01. ABarnes was born in NSW, Australia on 10 March 1871. He moved to England sometime in the 1890s, gaining an engineering apprenticeship at the Woolwich Arsenal and meeting his future wife, Elizabeth Jenner, whom he married on 7 June 1897, before volunteering for service in South Africa with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Clasps on Barnes's Boer War Medal indicate he saw service in the Orange Free State, Transvaal and Natal campaigns in 1900 and 1901. He returned to London where he and Elizabeth lived for another nine years before returning to Australia in 1910, settling in Lithgow, NSW. Barnes's armaments expertise ensured his immediate employment at the Lithgow Small Arms Factory, where he continued to work as an engineer until the late 1930s. He died on 1 November 1957. Pipe smoking was particularly popular during the Victorian period and this particular style was named after the South African general and later president Paulus Kruger, who died in 1904. Oom is Dutch for uncle. Carved pipes were a particular Boer tradition and many examples were brought back to Australia as souvenirs, usually personalised as in this example.