Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Private L. M. Rodger, Royal Highlanders

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Cape Colony, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Transvaal, Wittebergen (5639 Pte., 2R. Highrs.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps (5639 Pte., Rl. Highrs.); British War and Victory Medals (345939 Pte., R. Highrs.) first two with some edge bruising and contact marks, about very fine; last two nearly extremely fine (4) £160-200

Lewis Muir Rodger was born on 20 February 1877 in Union Street, St. Andrews, Fife. He joined the Royal Highlanders (Black Watch) in 1894. Two years later he was posted with 30 others under Lieutenant C. E. Stewart to South Africa where they formed part of the Highland Company of Mounted Infantry. He was posted to the U.K. in 1898 but returned to South Africa in the following year. In a letter to his sister dated 21 December 1899, which appeared in The Dundee Courier and Advertiser of 8 July 1989, he described his experiences at the battle of Paardeberg - attacking in the dark with fixed bayonets and during the retirement, volunteering to carry back a wounded man. Some time after the Boer War he returned to Fife, married and lived in Cupar and was employed as a Painter. With the onset of the Great War he rejoined the Royal Highlanders. Postwar he lived at St. Andrews and was sometime employed as the St. Andrew’s Links Ranger. He died in September 1962. Sold with a folder of copied research and with an original Boer War Christmas 1900 chocolate tin (empty), the base inscribed, ‘5639 Lc. Corporal L. Rodgers, F. Company, 2/Black Watch, Modder River Camp, South Africa, 25th January 1900’.