Orders, Decorations and Medals

An important Boer War D.S.O. group of five awarded to Lieutenant Colonel Hon. H. F. White, Grenadier Guards, one of the pioneers of Rhodesia and in command of the Mashonaland Mounted Police in the Jameson Raid
Distinguished Service Order, V.R., silver-gilt and enamels; Egypt and Sudan 1882-89, 1 clasp, Suakin 1885 (Lieut. Hon., 3/Grenr. Gds.); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Relief of Mafeking, Orange Free State, Transvaal, Rhodesia (Lt-Colonel Hon., Staff); King’s South Africa, 2 clasps (Lt. Col. Hon., R. of O.); Khedive’s Star 1884-6, backstraps of clasps removed to facilitate mounting, some light pitting from star, otherwise good very fine (5)

D.S.O. London Gazette 19 April, 1901: Lieut.-Colonel, British South African Police. ‘In recognition of services during the operations in South Africa.’
The Hon. Henry Frederick White was born in 1859, son of the 2nd Baron Annaly. He was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards and served with them in the Soudan campaign of 1885. It was with Rhodesia, however, that the most active part of his career was associated. He was appointed Magistrate at Salisbury when that town was in its infancy, and then became Chief Commissioner of the British South Africa Company’s Police. In 1899 he was Mayor of Bulawayo. His connection with Cecil Rhodes and the principal officers of the Chartered Company was intimate, and he accompanied Dr. Jameson on his famous raid into the Transvaal. For his share in that undertaking, in which he commanded the Mashonaland Mounted Police, he was sentenced to 5 month’s imprisonment with hard labour and was deprived of his commission, but the War Office afterwards reinstated him. He subsequently threw in his lot with the mining industry. When the Boer War broke out, he at once returned to his old profession, commanding the colonial regiment with Colonel Plumer’s force. He took part in the attack on the Boer fort at Gabarones on 12 February, 1900, and was wounded while caught in a wire entanglement. He recovered, however, in time to be present at the relief of Mafeking. During the latter part of the war he commanded a regiment of New Zealanders and took part in the great drives in the east of the Orange River Colony. Colonel Harry White died of pneumonia at Pietersburg on 17 August, 1903. Contemporary accounts described him as one of the most popular of the pioneers of Rhodesia and “above all things an honest English gentleman”