A Collection of Medals to the North Staffordshire Regiment

Pair: Colonel L. T. C. Twyford, North Staffordshire Regiment, who rose to Brigade Command in the temporary rank of Brigadier-General in the Great War

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Major L. T. C. Twyford, N. Staff. Rgt.); Coronation 1911, edge nicks and contact marks, otherwise very fine (2) £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the North Staffordshire Regiment.

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Lionel Thomas Campbell Twyford was born in Bath in June 1865, the second son of Captain Ennis Twyford, ‘who gave his life at the age of about thirty-two in a gallant attempt to succour a cholera-stricken village in India’. Tonbridge School in the Great War continues, he was a descendant of Sir Nicholas Twyford, who was head of the Goldsmiths’ Company and Lord Mayor of London in about 1347, and who, according to family tradition, was the doughty knight who knocked down Watt Tyler ‘in the market place’ for sedition.

Lionel, who attended Tonbridge 1877-82, passed into Sandhurst and was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the North Staffordshire Regiment in August 1884. He was Adjutant of the 2nd Battalion from 1892 to 1895, and for the three following years was Adjutant to the Provisional Battalion. He then became Inspector of Musketry in the North-Eastern District until ordered to South Africa.
He subsequently served on the Staff as District Commandant in Cape Colony from February 1901 until May 1902 (Medal & 3 clasps); His elder brother Ernest was killed in action while serving in the Cameronians in the Boer War.

Appointed to the command of the 1st Battalion in 1909, Twyford was advanced to Colonel in October 1912 and placed on the Retired Lost in April of the following year. He became a partner in the business of George Brettle & Co. Ltd. of Belper, Derbyshire, and chairman of the company in 1914, a short-lived appointment owing to the outbreak of hostilities. Tonbridge School in the Great War takes up the story:

‘Soon after the outbreak of war he raised and commanded the 57th Infantry Brigade of the 19th (New Army) Division, his appointment as Temporary Brigadier-General being dated September 14th, 1914. In the following July he took the Brigade to France, and commanded it at the front until June 16th, 1916. During this period the Brigade was for long holding trenches between Festubert and Laventie, and took part, with the Indian Corps, in the battle of Loos in September and October 1915. He was “mentioned” in Field Marshal Sir D. Haig’s despatch dated April 30th, 1916.

Unfortunately, whilst in France he had met with an accident that ultimately proved much more serious than it appeared at the time. A consignment of mules had arrived for his Brigade, and, whilst he was inspecting them, they were stampeded by a shell that fell in their midst. In the confusion that ensued he received a severe kick in the groin, and, though he made light of it then, his fatal illness was unquestionably caused by it. Those who knew him bear eloquent testimony to his qualities as a man and to his gallantry and efficiency as an officer.’

The General died in August 1920, aged 55 years; sold with brief copied research.