Auction Catalogue
Create new list‘Your son was admitted to our hospital on 15th March [1902] suffering from Enteric Fever. He did very well until about the 31st March when he became worse ... He was always a very quiet boy and made a very good patient. He did not suffer much pain, only great weakness, still we hoped that he would get over it. I tried several times to get the address of his people at home but he was too weak to say more than that they lived in the north of London. He died quietly in the night without any pain and was unconscious so left no messages ... ’
A letter from Nursing Sister H. A. Lawrence to the father of Gunner E. J. Theobald, refers.
A well-documented Boer War Medal awarded to Gunner E. J. Theobald, Royal Field Artillery: wounded in the V.C. action at Moedwil in September 1901, he subsequently died of disease
Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (6082 Gnr. E. J. Theobald, 28th Bty. R.F.A.), dated clasps attached by brass rivets, extremely fine £240-280
Edward John Theobald enlisted in the Royal Artillery, aged 18, on 7 March 1900. He served in South Africa from 1 January 1901 with 28th Battery, R.F.A. According to Stirling’s British Regiments in South Africa, ‘In the second phase of the war the 28th was much employed in the Megaliesberg, the treacherous gulleys of which they have every reason to remember. Two guns of the 28th were with with Dixon when he was attacked at Vlakfontein, 29 May 1901. After the screen was driven it was round these two guns, which were captured and then recaptured, by what was perhaps the finest bayonet charge in the war, that the fight raged with unsurpassed fierceness … Three guns of the battery were with the same column, now under Kekewich, when it was attacked by Delarey and Kemp at Moediwil or Megato, 29 September 1901. The battery again did well. They lost 5 men killed and 9 wounded.’
The action at Moedwil was a dawn attack by 1200 Boers on Kekewich’s camp. It was a fierce, determined and carefully-planned attack which lasted two and half hours. Creswicke wrote that ‘the success of the repulse was mainly due to the amazing gallantry of all ranks’. Gunner Theobald was slightly wounded. Private W. Bees of the Derbyshire Regiment was awarded the Victoria Cross for taking water to wounded men under heavy fire.
Gunner Theobald died of disease on 12 April 1902 and was buried in the Waverley Road Cemetery, Bloemfontein. He is commemorated on the left hand pillar of the Royal Regiment of Artillery Memorial in St James’s Park, London. His next of kin was his father, Harry Theobald, of 38 Pickering Street, Islington, London.
Sold with a quantity of original letters and official communications, comprising R.A. Record Office letter to the recipient’s father, dated 5 October 1901, with confirmation of his son having been slightly wounded at Moedwil; another similar, reporting his death from enteric fever at Bloemfontein, dated 15 April 1902; War Office communication, dated 15 May 1902, regarding his Estate; the above quoted letter from Nursing Sister H. A. Lawrence, No. 9 General Hospital, Bloemfontein; War Office communication confirming final settlement of the recipient’s Estate at £19 4s 5d, dated 2 September 1902; and R.A. Record Office forwarding letter for his Queen’s South Africa Medal, dated 14 May 1903.
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