Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant-Colonel H. H. Harington, Lincolnshire Regiment

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Paardeberg, Johannesburg (Capt: H. H. Harington. Lincoln. Rgt.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps (Capt. H. H. Harington. Linc. Rgt.) light contact marks, good very fine and better (2) £340-380

Herbert Henry Harington was born in Chichester, Sussex, on 14 August 1868. Commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Lincolnshire Regiment on 16 November 1887, having previously served in the Militia, he was posted to the 2nd Battalion and served with them in India from March 1888 to February 1892, being promoted Lieutenant on 14 May 1890; and in the Straits Settlements from December 1892 to April 1895. Returning home, he was promoted Captain on 6 October 1897, before proceeding to South Africa with the 2nd Battalion following the outbreak of the Boer War. He served in South Africa from 4 January 1900 as the commander of “H” Company, and was present during the operations in the Orange Free State, February to May 1900, including operations at Paardeberg and the actions at Poplar Grove, Vet River, and Zand River; operations in the Transvaal in May and June 1900, including the actions near Johannesburg and Pretoria; and operations in the Transvaal from 1900-02. For his services during the Boer War he was Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 10 September 1901).

On 6 June 1902 Harington left South Africa in command of the Battalion’s contingent of 1 officer and 12 men for the Coronation of H.M. King Edward VII. However, owing to the postponement of the Coronation, the contingent was not present at the re-scheduled Coronation, and so neither Harington nor the 12 men from the Battalion received the medal. Returning instead to South Africa, he finally retuned home with the rest of the Battalion on 3 April 1904. He transferred to the Retired List on 19 November 1904, but served during the Great War on the Reserve of Officers in the Department of the Adjutant-General to the Forces as a Staff Captain from 16 December 1914. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General on 25 July 1916, and was promoted Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on 22 October 1917.

A keen cricketer, Harington played two First Class matches for Kent in 1897, with a top score of 34. He married Miss Dorothy Pepys, the daughter of the Hon. Walter Courtenay Pepys, in 1909, with whom he had three children, including the future General Sir Charles Harington, G.C.B., D.S.O., M.C. He died at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on 1 January 1948.


Sold together with various photographic images, including a group photograph of “H” Company, 2nd Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, taken in South Africa in July 1903; a group photograph of the officers of the 2nd Battalion taken at the Officer’s Mess in Daaspoort Nek, Pretoria, in 1900; and a portrait of the recipient.