Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

India General Service 1895-1902, 2 clasps, Punjab Frontier 1897-98, Tirah 1897-98 (3607 Pte. T. W. Gill. 11th. Hussars.); together with Army Rifle Association Queen Victoria’s Cup Prize Medal, silver, the reverse engraved ‘T. W. Gill 11th. Hussars.’, suspension to first replaced with later post-1945 straight bar suspension, unofficial rivets between clasps, contact marks, nearly very fine, the Prize Medal extremely fine and scarce (2) £100-140

Thomas W. Gill, alias Henry Garner, was born in Camberwell, Surrey, in 1873, and attested for the 11th Hussars at Woolwich on 27 September 1892. He served with the Regiment in India from January 1893 until October 1899, and then in Egypt, before transferring to the Military Mounted Police on 1 August 1900. Advanced Squadron Sergeant Major on 14 December 1912, he was awarded his Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in 1913 per Army Order 333, and was discharged on 26 September 1913, after 21 years’ service.

A keen marksman, Gill was part of the 11th Hussars team that won the Queen Victoria’s Cup in 1898 and 1899. The Queen’s Cup for Cavalry was instituted in 1896 by the National Rifle Association, and was open to all Cavalry Regiments home and abroad. It only existed for 7 years, as in 1903 the regulations were changed and there became two cups- one for Cavalry and Infantry at home, and another for Cavalry and Infantry abroad. In the 7 years that the Queen Victoria’s Cup was contested the 11th Hussars won it five times, in 1896, 98, 99, 1900, and 02. Competed for by teams of eight, only 56 winners’ medals were awarded, with 40 of these going to the 11th Hussars. Regimental Sergeant Major W. T. Alderson was in the winning 11th Hussars team on all five occasions, and four other men won it on at least three occasions; Gill is one of a number of men who were awarded it on more than one occasion.