Auction Catalogue

21 September 2001

Starting at 12:00 PM

.

Orders, Decorations and Medals

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Download Images

Lot

№ 229

.

21 September 2001

Hammer Price:
£3,500

An important Q.S.A. to Captain M. W. H. Lindsay, Seaforth Highlanders, attached as Adjutant, 2nd Scottish Horse, wounded and mentioned in despatches at Magersfontein, severely wounded at Roodekrantz, and killed in action in the heroic stand at Brakenlaagte

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Cape Colony, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Transvaal, Wittebergen (Lieut. M. W. H. Lindsay, Sea. Highrs.) extremely fine £2000-2500

M.I.D. London Gazette 16 March 1900: “For gallant and conspicuous behaviour at Magersfontein when in charge of a Maxim gun.”

Michael William Howard Lindsay was born in 1872, son of William Alexander Lindsay, K.C. (
Windsor Herald), and of Lady Harriet Lindsay. He was educated at Malvern and entered the Seaforth Highlanders from the R.M.C. in July 1893, being promoted Lieutenant in October 1895, and Captain in November 1900. In 1895 he served with the Chitral Relief Force under Sir Robert Low with the 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, and was present in the engagement at Mamagai, receiving the medal with clasp.

At the outbreak of the Boer war he accompanied his battalion to South Africa, and took part in the operations under Lieut.-Gen. Lord Methuen for the Relief of Kimberley. At Magersfontein “Lieutenant Lindsay took the Seaforth Maxim round to the extreme left of the line, very pluckily under a heavy fire cutting down an opening for it through a barbed wire fence, and there fought it for half an hour in the open, till two wounds and the loss of most of the detachment compelled him to cease fire.” (Ref
Times History of the War in South Africa)

In March 1901 the 2nd Scottish Horse was raised and Lord Tullibardine appointed Major F. D. Murray (Black Watch) and Captain Michael Lindsay (Seaforth Highlanders), commanding officer and adjutant respectively. The regiment joined Colonel Benson’s column in the Eastern Transvaal. Their first serious skirmish was at Roodekrantz on 30 April 1901, when one man was killed, four officers and one man wounded, amongst the latter Captain Lindsay, severely.

On October 30th, 1901, the Boers overwhelmed the rearguard of Colonel Benson’s column, near Brakenlaagte, killing Colonel Benson himself, Major Murray, Captain Lindsay, and three other officers and twenty-eight men of the Scottish Horse. The heroic stand of the rear-guard places Brakenlaagte among the glorious memories of British arms. Major Murray and Captain Lindsay dismounted by the guns at the head of the Scottish Horse, commanding and beseeching all who heard them “to stop and hold the ridge or else they’d lose the guns,” in the forlorn hope of checking the Boers until the guns could be taken away by reinforcements. The defenders of the hill were almost annihilated. All the officers present were killed or wounded. Of 79 Scottish Horse only six were unhurt, of 32 gunners only 3, of 20 60th Rifles only 3, and of 40 Yorkshiremen only 5.

On the 1st of November a burial party went out to the rise on which the guns had stood. Of all the dead, only Lieutenant Kelly, Scottish Horse, had not been stripped. His coat, riddled by over thirty bullets, was torn to shreds and not worth the taking. According to one of the survivors Captain Lindsay was hit three times when he was killed.