Edmund Rogers Coker

Born In January 1844 in the West Indies, he was commissioned as an Ensign in the Madras Army in 1861 and then joined the 106th Bombay Light Infantry. In 1881, whilst on garrison duty in the Mediterranean, the 106th Regiment became the 2nd Battalion DLI, with Lieutenant Colonel Coker taking command in 1884. After four uneventful years on Malta and Gibraltar the Durhams were ordered to Egypt to help meet the threat of invasion from the Sudan. Landing at Alexandria in February 1885, 2 DLI moved into barracks in Cairo. In November, after months of inaction and with many soldiers sick, the battalion was finally sent south by train and steamer to Upper Egypt. On 30 December 1885 a combined British and Egyptian Army defeated the Sudanese invaders at Ginnis on the River Nile. In just a few hours over 500 Sudanese soldiers were killed and 300 wounded. The Durhams under Lieutenant Colonel Coker lost just four soldiers wounded - one fatally. However with the fighting over his battalion faced a far worse enemy - cholera - and before they left Egypt for India in January 1887 disease had killed 56 men.