Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Johannesburg (Lieut. D. J. Dickinson, S. Wales Bord.), together with portrait miniature of the recipient in uniform, wearing this medal, in silver oval glazed frame, the reverse containing a lock of his hair, reverse glass cracked, good very fine £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to Welsh Regiments formed by the Late Llewellyn Lord.

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Douglas John Dickinson, scion of ‘one of the oldest Breconshire familis’, was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the South Wales Borderers direct from the R.M.C. Sandhurst in May 1898. Embarked for South Africa with ‘D’ Company of 2nd Battalion in January 1900, he subsequently served in 8th Mounted Infantry Regiment, and was present at the relief of Kimberley and in the actions at Paardeberg, Driefontein and Johannesburg (Queen’s Medal & 4 clasps).

In September 1900, Dickinson led a patrol that captured ‘six Frenchmen belonging to a party of train-wreckers raised by Commandant Theron, who were giving trouble blowing up the railway line almost every night. This success earned the detachment a special telegram of congratulations from Lord Roberts’ (Atkinson’s regimental history, refers); it also earned Dickinson a mention in despatches (London Gazette 10 September 1901, refers).

He died of enteric at Brecon Barracks on 7 October 1902, aged 24 years; sold with copied research.