Orders, Decorations and Medals Including five Special Collections

South Africa 1877-79, 1 clasp, 1879 (14281 Sapper G. Gibson, R.E.) nearly very fine £200-250

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Gordon Everson.

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George Gibson was born in the Parish of St George’s, Yorkshire, and attested at Doncaster for the Royal Engineers on 26 May 1877, aged 22. His occupation was given as carpenter, and he joined the 2nd Company at Chatham. He served in the Zulu War of 1879 with the 2nd Company under Captain N. R. C. Wynne, R.E., and was present at the battle of Inyezane on 22 January, the blockade of Ekowe from 23 January to 3 April, and the operations before Ulundi on 4 July 1879. Gibson returned home in July 1882, and from 1883 was stationed in Portsmouth until April 1886, when he returned to Chatham. Later in that year he embarked on the S.S. Orontes for service in the West Indies, and was stationed in Bermuda for four years from October 1886. He returned to the U.K. in May 1890 and served subsequently for two years in England and five years in Ireland. Back at Chatham in 1897, he was seriously injured on 14 June when the structure of an experimental bridge gave way and fell on him, fracturing both bones of his left leg and the right side of his pelvis. He was consequently discharged at Chatham on 23 December 1897.