Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (481 Pte. W. Robinson, 9th. Coy. 3rd. Imp: Yeo:) nearly extremely fine £80-120

Walter Robinson was born in Bingley, Yorkshire, in 1876, and attested for the Imperial Yeomanry at Sheffield, Yorkshire, on 1 January 1900. He served with the 9th (Yorkshire Hussars) Company, 3rd Battalion Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa during the Boer War from 27 January to 6 July 1900, and was discharged on 23 October 1900. A letter home to his father, dated 24 April 1900, and reported in the Keighley News, records his service:
‘You were right when you said we were in for a rough time. We have had it rough lately, up at three in the morning, marching all day, and the worst of wet weather-having to sleep in the open with two blankets, raining in torrents, and our clothes wet through for two or three days. But I was not so bad as some, as I used to sleep under the wagons, and so kept nearly dry. We have been staying at Swartzkopjefonteing for about a week, but the Boers came in force from Warrenton, and we had to retire on Boshof. We had rather a stiff fight before we got in, and we lost two killed and fourteen missing and six wounded in the Yeomanry alone. I am sorry to say that Fred Northrop and John Anderton are prisoners. I will tell you as well as I can how it happened. We left Swartzkopjefontein at two p.m. with our convoy, which was three miles long, the wagons being three and four abreast. Our company, the 9th, were on the right flank, and when we had gone about two miles we heard guns firing. I was riding quietly along by myself with the wagon when the first shot was heard. I then galloped over a hill to my right, and saw the Boers on a kopje about a mile and a half away. I saw my company galloping up to a kopje, which they occupied; they passed about 500 yards away, and I thought of joining them, but I was just pointing out some Boers on a kopje when someone asked me what I was pointing at, and on looking round I found it was Lord Methuen. I told him what I saw and he told me to go and hurry up the bullock wagons, which I did. The shells and the "Pom-poms" were swishing over our heads. After that I went to see the fight. I was in a good place to see, though rather near. Our company occupied a kopje with the Kimberley Light Horse, but it got too hot- the horses were getting shot; they broke loose and some got away. The last I heard of Fred and Jack was they were left without a horse. Fred was on the top of the kopje, which was surrounded, and Jack could not run, having been hit with a splinter of rock on the knee. We got in Boshof, about 7 p.m. after a rather stiff five hours. Some of our fellows went to bury the dead on Saturday, and the Boers came up to them and told them that all the prisoners had been sent away. So they are on their way to Pretoria.’

Sold together with a facsimile poster of the members of “A” Leeds Squadron, Yorkshire Hussars.