Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (22534 L. Corpl. J. Kirk, 2nd Coy. Imp. Yeo.) edge bruising, contact marks, nearly very fine £120-160

On 4 March 1982 Sotheby’s sold this QSA together with Kirk’s Territorial Force Efficiency Medal named to him as a Sergeant in the 9th Royal Scots, an Edinburgh-based unit.

Kirk was born near Edinburgh and was a 30 year-old bookkeeper when he enlisted in the Imperial Yeomanry on 1 February 1901. He served for a year and 250 days before being discharged on 8 October 1902. His intended place of residence was 4 Waverley Park, Edinburgh.

Lance-Corporal John Kirk, 2nd Battalion (Wilts) Company Imperial Yeomanry was slightly wounded during an action at Tigerkloof on 23 April 1901. In Diary of an Edinburgh Trooper R. Paterson Hay, who fought alongside Kirk, described the action thus:

“An unsatisfactory day’s work this. 2nd Wilts squadron acted as rear-guard, a difficult, dangerous job. We took up a position at the rear of the camp, dismounted and extended. A thick mist prevailed. The Boers attacked us suddenly on the outer flank, shot eight horses dead, wounded two men and killed one. We had an awful job, the mist making it difficult to tell our own men from the Boers. Sent (sic) and was reinforced. Was under an awful hot fire nearly all day. Only went four miles all day. Buried our dead in a kraal. I took a rifle off a dead Boer.”

With copied service papers and other research.