Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Private R. P. W. Hunter, Gordon Highlanders, later Canadian Army, who was wounded in the Boer War and afterwards emigrated to Canada, serving during the Great War on the Western Front and with the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force in 1919

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Johannesburg (6569 Drmr: R. Hunter, Gordon Highrs:); British War and Victory Medals (455014 Pte. R. P. W. Hunter, 2-Can. Inf.) mounted as worn, suspension bent and claw rivet replaced on first, otherwise nearly very fine (3) £200-£260

Richard Perry Wells Hunter was born in Denniston, Glasgow on 30 April 1878, and enlisted in the 1st Battalion of The Gordon Highlanders in November of 1898. Drummer Hunter was wounded by a gunshot at Doornkop on 29 May 1900. Following the battle of Doornkop the Gordons and the Royal Canadian Regiment became particularly close and photographs exist of soldiers from both regiments posing after the battle. It may have been this connection which led to Hunter’s later emigration to Canada.

He enlisted in the 2nd Canadian Expeditionary Force on 16 July 1915, seeing service on the Western Front, and returned to Canada for discharge in June 1917 due to rheumatic gout contracted on the Somme.

On 1 October 1918 he attested for the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force. He disembarked at Vladivostock in January 1919 and returned to Canada in April of that year. Hunter was discharged in the rank of Company Quarter-Master Sergeant at Winnipeg on demobilisation on 20 April 1920. Sold with copied discharge papers.