Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Johannesburg (5390 Pte. C. Smith. 2nd. D. of C.L.I.) good very fine £100-£140

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the 46th Foot and its Successor Units.

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Charles Henry Seymour Smith (alias John Lewis) was born (according to the recipient’s attestation papers) in Penzance, Cornwall, in 1879 (although various census records show him as having been born in Redditch, Worcestershire, in 1871), and attested for the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry under an alias on 25 January 1898. In June 1899 he was convicted by Court Martial of ‘striking his superior officer’, and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. This sentence was not carried out to its full extent, for he sailed for South Africa with his battalion on 5 November 1899, and served in South Africa until 17 February 1903 (also entitled to the King’s South Africa Medal with both date clasps), being present at the Battle of Paardeberg on 18 February 1900, when, in the ‘Cornish Charge’, the Battalion suffered total casualties of 28 killed and 52 wounded. Returning home, and after various further periods in the cells or subjected to hard labour, he was discharged ‘incorrigible and worthless’ on 16 March 1904.

On 14 August 1909, Charles Henry Seymour Smith was charged by the civil powers with the desertion of his wife and children, and sentenced to six weeks hard labour. He died in London on 8 July 1928, his body being found by the police. Initially unidentified, he was later confirmed as Charles Henry Seymour Smith, aged 57, with a wife, Florence, living in Redditch, and an inquest found he died from a coma as a result of a fracture of the vault of the skull. He was buried in Islington Cemetery, East Finchley, on 13 July 1928.

Sold with copied service papers; medal roll extracts; and other research.