Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Defective Medal: King’s South Africa 1901-02, planchet only, no suspension or clasps (Capt: T. H. A. Williams, Candn: Scouts:) officially engraved naming, good very fine £100-£150

Sold with a good portrait photograph of the recipient in uniform wearing Q.S.A. with 3 clasps and ribbon of K.S.A., and a copy of Jim Wallace’s Knowing no Fear, the Canadian Scouts in South Africa 1900-1902, from which the following two extracts are taken:

‘In a skirmish one of the Canadian Scouts had his horse shot out from under him and he was immediately seized by eight Boers. When left with two of his captors, the Scout managed to lead them within range of a small kopje held by a patrol of the King’s Royal Rifles. This movement exposed one of the Boers and the officer in charge of the patrol promptly shot him. The Scout then slipped out a pistol, which he had somehow concealed and shot the other Boer. The Scout was probably Lieutenant Thomas Williams, a former Strathcona, who had the end of his finger shot off when he was captured. According to the Toronto Globe, two of Williams’s captors marched him about a hundred yards when he drew his pistol, which had somehow been overlooked when he was searched, and shot them both.’

‘Captain Thomas Williams, who made an intrepid escape after being captured by the Boers near Rietfontein in July 1901, was Mentioned in Despatches ‘for conspicuous good services in General B. Hamilton’s operations in the Ermelo District in December and January last.’

Confirmed on Q.S.A. roll of Lord Strathcona’s Horse for clasps, Natal, Orange Free State and Belfast. He is confirmed as having been slightly wounded at Rietfontein on 9 July 1901.