Orders, Decorations and Medals

An outstanding ‘Spion Kop’ D.S.O. group of five awarded to Lieutenant T. W. J. W. Howard, Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry, who was severely wounded in this famous action

Distinguished Service Order, V.R., silver-gilt and enamels; British South Africa Company Medal 1890-97, reverse Matabeleland 1893, 1 clasp, Rhodesia 1896 (Trooper, Raaff’s Column); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 1 clasp, Relief of Ladysmith (Lieut., D.S.O., Th’croft’s M.I.); Natal 1906, 1 clasp, 1906 (Tpr., Natal Carbineers); Coronation 1937, together with renamed K.S.A. and Great War pair, as worn by the recipient but to which he is not entitled, enamel chips to centres of D.S.O. and contact marks but generally very fine (8) £3500-4500

(Thomas) Walter (John Wright) Howard was born at Sheen, Surrey, in 1865, and educated at Winchester and Middle Temple. He emigrated to South Africa in 1891 and arrived in Rhodesia after the outbreak of the Matabele War as a member of the Southern Column under Commandant P. J. Raaff. He was a member of the Shangani Patrol from which Major Allan Wilson’s party was cut off and annihiliated, and he later volunteered to ascertain the fate of Wilson’s party, subsequently giving evidence at the Court of Inquiry into the disaster. When the Company’s forces were disbanded in December 1893 Howard enlisted as a member of the Mashonaland Mounted Police. In June 1894 he entered into partnership with Mr W. F. Usher for the purpose of prospecting in Matabeleland. During the 1896 Rebellion he was Military Secretary on the staff of the Bulawayo Filed Force with the rank of Lieutenant (despatches, Medal with clasp).

At the outbreak of the South African War, Walter Howard resigned his commission in the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers and joined Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry as a Trooper, at Chievely on 19 December 1899. He was commissioned in the field on 4 January 1900, and was dangerously wounded at Spion Kop on 24 January 1900. In this famous action Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry played a distinguished part and some 50% of the men engaged became casualties. Howard was discharged on 19 July 1900, in consequence of his wounds, and, for gallantry in the field, was mentioned in despatches London Gazette 16 April 1901, and created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order London Gazette 19 April 1901. The Insignia, Warrant and Statutes were sent to the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa and presented there. For the remainder of the war he was Adjutant of the Bulawayo Town Guard and, although not entitled to it, Howard afterwards proudly wore a privately named King’s South Africa Medal. He was appointed a J.P. for Bulawayo in 1902. During the Zulu Rebellion in 1906, he served as a Trooper in the Natal Carbineers and then returned to prospecting in Rhodesia.

In 1914 he embarked on a cycle journey from Bulawayo to Cairo and by August he had reached German East Africa. In consequence of the outbreak of the war, he was interned and not released until 1917, when he sailed for England and joined the 10th County of London Regiment, but did not serve overseas. He returned to prospecting and mining in South Africa and subsequently Rhodesia, where in 1929 he was re-appointed a J.P. for Bulawayo. He was a member of the contingent sent by the Pioneer societies to London for the Coronation in 1937, for which he received the medal. Major Walter Howard died in Bulawayo on 22 January 1941.

The medals are accompanied by a transcript of a lecture given by Walter Howard in 1932, on the 1893 Shangani Patrol and the loss of Major Wilson’s party. Major Howard’s original diaries, including the diary of his internment in German East Africa, and other papers which include the warrant for the D.S.O., were presented to the National Archives of Rhodesia in the early 1970’s.