Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Wepener, Wittebergen (399 Tpr. F. H. L. Wicksteed, Brabant’s Horse) nearly extremely fine £350-450

Francis Herbert Laurence Wicksteed was born in Walthamstow, Essex, on 31 July 1870. Served as a Trooper in Brabant’s Horse and as a Lieutenant in Gorringe’s Flying Column and in ‘A’ Squadron, Cape Colonial Forces. Additionally entitled to the clasps ‘South Africa 1901’ and ‘1902’. He died at Middleburg, Eastern Cape, on 8 October 1902.

As a Lieutenant in Gorringe’s Flying Column, he is recorded as being the officer in charge of the execution of Hendrik Jacobus van Heerden on 2 March 1901. Van Heerden was a respected farmer and shopkeeper. Being brought in for questioning after a Boer commando had passed through the area where he lived, both he and two troopers were wounded by Boers still in the vicinity. Tried in his absence by Gorringe, and found guilty of treachery and treason in leading his captors into an ambush, the wounded van Heerden was dragged from his bed and summarily executed. His execution was widely seen as a shameful and barbaric miscarriage of British justice. With copied roll extracts and other research.