Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Boer War D.C.M. group of three awarded to Sergeant T. W. Vine, City of London Imperial Volunteers, formerly 3rd Middlesex Volunteer Artillery and later South African Constabulary

Distinguished Conduct Medal, E.VII.R. (Serjt. T. W. Vine, S.A.C.); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Paardeberg, Johannesburg (706 Sgt. T. W. Vine, C.I.V.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (942 T. Sjt.-Maj. T. W. Vine, S.A.C.) mounted as worn, good very fine (3) £2000-2500

D.C.M. London Gazette 27 September 1901: Sergeant T. W. Vine, City of London Imperial Volunteers. Although Vine’s D.C.M. is named to the S.A.C. it was unquestionably won whilst he was serving with the C.I.V.

Thomas Walter Vine was born on 22 July 1870, and joined the Volunteers on 20 July 1887, serving in the 3rd Middlesex Volunteer Artillery. He received the Royal Humane Society’s Honorary Testimonial in October 1891, ‘for having on the 18th April 1891 gone to the rescue of Gunner Sharman, who was in imminent danger of drowning at Shoeburyness, and whose life he gallantly assisted in saving.’

A jeweller and watchmaker by trade, he volunteered to join the City of London Volunteers in January 1900, then aged 29, and served in South Africa with No. 1 Mounted Infantry Company. He was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 10 September 1901) and awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. He was discharged from the C.I.V. Mounted Infantry at Pretoria on 1 October 1900, at his own request to be employed with the South African Constabulary. He served as a Troop Sergeant-Major in the S.A.C. for the remainder of the war and later became a Head Constable. He was discharged from the S.A.C. upon its withdrawal from Swaziland in March 1907, and transferred to the Swaziland Police with whom he served until 1925.

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