Auction Catalogue

27 June 2007

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations and Medals

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

Lot

№ 823

.

27 June 2007

Hammer Price:
£4,800

A Boer War “Crossing of the Tugela” D.C.M. pair awarded to Sergeant G. E. Ackland, Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry, late British Army and Brabant’s Horse, who was killed in action at Marakabi in July 1901

Distinguished Conduct Medal
, V.R. (Pte. G. E. Ackland, Thorneycroft’s M.I.); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 7 clasps, Cape Colony, Tugela Heights, Orange Free State, Relief of Ladysmith, Transvaal, Laing’s Nek, South Africa 1901 (7492 Serjt., Th’croft’s M.I.), virtually as issued (2) £3000-3500

D.C.M. London Gazette 19 April 1901. The following details appeared in Lord Roberts’ final despatch published in an earlier edition of the London Gazette on 8 February 1901:

‘Private G. E. Ackland and Private J. B. Fisher, Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry, for crossing the Tugela under heavy fire to see if there were barbed wire in the drift, on 21 February 1900.’

George Edgar Ackland was born in Dublin and originally enlisted in the Connaught Rangers in Galway in August 1890, aged 18 years, but purchased his discharge for £10 a few weeks later. Judging by details supplied in his attestation papers for Brabant’s Horse, dated 28 November 1899, he nonetheless returned to military employ in the interim, for in these he stated prior service in the 5th Dragoon Guards and a currently an Army Reserve. Be that as it may, Ackland went on to win entitlement to the ‘Cape Colony’ clasp with Brabant’s Horse before transferring to Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry in late January 1900 and winning his D.C.M. in the following month, as per the above cited deeds during the crossing of the Tugela (Army Order 163/01).

He was killed in action at Marakabi, a farmstead in the Orange Free State, on 8 July 1901.