Auction Catalogue

5 & 6 December 2018

Starting at 10:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

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Lot

№ 365

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5 December 2018

Hammer Price:
£750

South Africa 1877-79, 1 clasp, 1879 (2268 Pte. G. Davies, 99th Foot) edge bruise and polished obverse, nearly very fine £400-£500

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, December 2012.

George Davis originally joined the Middlesex Militia, but subsequently deserted, a misdemeanour that quickly caught up with him when he re-enlisted the 41st Regiment in November 1877 - he was ordered to repay the Militia 18s 6d. Having then been fined for drunkenness in April 1878, he transferred to the 99th Foot at the end of the year, but now owed £2 5s 7d.

Embarking for South Africa in December 1878, he would have been present in the skirmish at Inyezane on 22 January 1879, but whether he was subsequently one of the 99th’s besieged at Eshowe, or in fact a member of the relief column, remains unknown. Be that as it may, his career now took a turn for the worse, a string of drinking offences between 1879-81 leading to many fines and two or three stints in jail. Better behaved in India in the mid-1880s, he was discharged back in England in early 1888.

Sold with researched career history taken from the regimental musters.