Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1902 (9699 Cpl. Hon. V. Gibson, 45th Coy. Imp. Yeo.) good very fine £250-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Small Collection of Medals relating to the Disaster at Lindley on 31 May 1900.

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Collection

Ex Lovell Collection, November 1978.

Ernest Victor Gibson was born in Dublin on 3 January 1875, the 4th son of the 1st Baron Ashbourne (created 1885), subsequently Irish Lord Chancellor. Called to the Irish Bar in 1899. Attested for the Imperial Yeomanry at Newbridge on 6 January 1900. Served as a Corporal in the 45th (Irish Hunt) Company 13th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa. Taken prisoner at Lindley, 31 May 1900. Commissioned a Lieutenant in the Imperial Yeomanry, 3 January 1902 and resigned from the Army, 5 December 1902. A Barrister at Law, of King’s Inn, Dublin and a Temporary Commander in the R.N.V.R. With some copied research.

His sister, The Hon. Violet Gibson came to fame when she shot and slightly wounded Mussolini in Rome on 7 April 1926. Subsequently pardoned by Mussolini, the Hon Violet was escorted back to England and was interned for the rest of her life in a private hospital for lunatics. The shot slightly grazed the ‘Il Duce’s’ nose - how history might have been changed if she had been a better shot! With the paperback, The Woman who Shot Mussolini, by Frances Stonor Saunders.