Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1902 (Capt. R. C. Dunn, Lanc. Fus. M.I.) minor edge bruising and polished, very fine £400-500

Ex Usher Collection.

Robert Charles Dunn was born on 3 April 1877 and commissioned into the 4th Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment on 20 October 1897. He then entered the Lancashire Fusiliers as a 2nd Lieutenant in February 1899, being promoted to Lieutenant in October the same year and to Captain in June 1902. As part of the 1st Battalion stationed on Malta at the end of 1901, Dunn was seconded for service in the Mounted Infantry Company in South Africa, disembarking at Durban in January 1902. Equipped with ‘raw and unbroken’ Russian ponies, the Company made its way to Brigadier-General Cunningham’s command and was ordered to Zuikerbosch Rand, a ‘hilly and dangerous’ part of the countryside ‘which favoured the enemy’ under De Wet’s command. Sure enough, on 12 February 1902, when ordered to sieze Blesboklaagte Farm, Dunn and his men became embroiled in a desperate action against superior Boer forces. Because their unreliable Russian ponies bolted, they were obliged to make a stand on the open veldt, where they defended themselves with ‘great gallantry’, refusing to surrender until nearly every man had either been killed or wounded, as the Boers had closed to within 30 yards and were firing at almost point-blank range. Lieutenant Dunn was amongst the latter, being dangerously wounded, shot through the chest and spine. No doubt as a result of these wounds, he was placed on Half Pay in November 1903 and finally retired in November 1908.

He was re-employed during the Great War and was awarded the 1914-15 Star trio. In 1917 he was employed by the Ministry of National Service, N.W. Region, at the Art University, Liverpool. For his wartime services he was awarded the O.B.E. Captain Dunn died on 20 March 1929, aged 52 years. With copied research.