Orders, Decorations and Medals

QUEEN'S SOUTH AFRICA 1899-1902, no clasp (Mr. A.G. Hales, 'Daily News') very fine and an important medal to a War Correspondent

Mr. A.G. Hales was born in Australia in 1870 and married firstly, Emmaline, daughter of William Pritchard of Adelaide. They had four sons and one daughter before she died in 1911. He married subsequently Jean Reid of Scotland. Mr. Hales was a correspondent for the Daily News in South Africa and was wounded and taken prisoner at Rensburg in February 1900. Hales had attached himself to the Australians, then engaged in some fierce fighting near Colesburg, when he was taken prisoner. The correspondent of the Melbourne Herald, accompanied by Mr. Cameron, the Australian correspondent, bearing a flag of truce, went to the Boer line west of Rensburg to make enquiries from Commandant Delarey regarding Mr. Lambie, Melbourne Age, and Mr. Hales, Daily News, the missing Australian correspondents. They were blindfolded before being taken into the Boer camp, where they were informed that Mr. Lambie had been killed, and were handed the portrait of his wife, which had been found in his pocket. Mr. Hales, owing to a fall from his horse, had been taken prisoner. After the Boer War Mr. Hales continued to write for the Daily News covering the fighting in Macedonia and during the Russo-Japanese war. He travelled extensively throughout the world lecturing and as a special correspondent. He followed mining for years and visited nearly every known mining field in the world, making a particular study of the mining, pastoral and agricultural possibilities in South America. He was a prolific writer and had published a great number of novels including the McGlusky adventures. Mr. Hales lived latterly at Herne Bay in Kent and died on 29 November 1936 (Ref Who Was Who 1929-40) A total of 149 medals were given to War Correspondents in the Boer War, these representing 47 newspapers and journals throughout the Empire. The Daily News was amalgamated, in 1930, with The Daily Chronicle to form the News Chronicle.