Orders, Decorations and Medals

QUEEN'S SOUTH AFRICA 1899-1902, 2 clasps, CC., Paard. (Lt. Col. W. Aldworth, D.S.O., 2/D. of C.L.I.) officially engraved naming, extremely fine

Lieutenant-Colonel William Aldworth was killed in action at Paadeberg when leading a forlorn hope on 18th February, 1900. Lieut. W. H. Fife wrote of Lieut-Colonel Aldworth, 'I can only say that he was the most gallant soldier I shall ever see, and it was owing to his splendid example that we advanced so steadily when others refused to budge. I would willingly have been killed instead of him, as I could have easily been replaced, and he cannot. He was hit in the forehead just as he had said: ""Come on, Dukes! Come on, Comwalls!' He fell, but raising himself on his elbow, added: “Go on men, and finish it!'' Lieut-Colonel Aldworth was forty-four years of age, having been born on October 3, 1855. He entered the army as a sub-1ieutenant on June 13, 1874, and was gazetted to the 16th Foot, of which he was adjutant from October 17, 1877, to March 29, 1881. Gazetted a captain in the Bedfordshire Regiment on March 30, 1881, he served with the Burmese Expedition from January 14, 1885, to March 3, 1886, as aide-dc-camp and acting military secretary to Sir Harry Prendergast, first as a major-general in Madras, and then as general officer commanding in Upper Burma, being mentioned in despatches and receiving the D.S.O. and the medal with clasp. He also took part in the Isazai Expedition in 1892, and in February 1893 was gazetted a major. In 1895 he served with the Chitral Relief Force under Sir Robert Low with the 1st battalion of his then regiment (the Bedfordshire), and took part in the storming of the Malakand Pass and the engagement near Khar, for which he had the medal with clasp. Again he was in active service in 1897-98, under Sir William Lockhart, in the campaign on the NorthWest Frontier of India, with the Tirah Expeditionary Force as deputy-assistant-adjutant-general of the 2nd Brigade, and with the Khyber Force as deputy-assistant-adjutant-general, being present at the forcing of the Sampagha and Arhanga Passes, and the operations against the Chamkanis and in the Bazar Valley. He was mentioned in despatches, received the brevet of lieutenant-colonel (May 20, 1898), and two clasps. He obtained the substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry on October 12, 1898.