The Jack Webb Collection of Medals and Militaria

The Q.S.A. awarded to Lance-Corporal J. B. Lloyd, 14th Middlesex (Inns of Court) Rifle Volunteers and City of London Imperial Volunteers, the author of ‘One Thousand Miles with the C.I.V.’

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill (102 Cpl. J. B. Lloyd, C.I.V.) nearly extremely fine £400-£500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Jack Webb Collection of Medals and Militaria.

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Collection

Provenance: Michael Haines Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, December 2002.

John Barclay Lloyd was born in Highgate, Middlesex on 29 June 1864, the son of tobacco manufacturer, Frederick G. Lloyd, and was educated at Highgate School and Magdalen College, Oxford. A barrister by profession, he joined the 14th Middlesex (Inns of Court) Rifle Volunteers on 5 November 1888 and served in South Africa in their twenty man cyclist section with the City Imperial Volunteers during the Boer War. Lloyd served as Corporal with F Company of the Infantry Battalion.

Lloyd authored a book detailing his experiences during the Boer War entitled One Thousand Miles with the C.I.V., published by Methuen & Co. in 1901. A collection of records and impressions written on the move in South Africa, the book was already completed by 7 October 1900, before the orders for the C.I.V. to return home were received, and reflects on the exertions and achievements of the C.I.V.:

‘For weeks and weeks we have been marching, for weeks and weeks our rations have been dwindling, we have rested but two whole days since the Brigade was formed at Glen, and before that we of the C.I.V. had completed over a hundred miles’ continuous marching from Springfontein. We have fought two battles and been in partial action on five occasions on the road, and now we stand on parade at Kroonstadt 850 strong, and can say, I think, that we are amateurs no longer.’

At times Lloyd muses on the natural beauty of their remote station:
‘Glorious sunrises and sunsets marking the rapid change from night to day and from day to night, burning tropical sun, sudden and violent thunderstorms, gusts of burning wind driving before them clouds of blinding dusts, summer lightning flashing round the horizon when nights are fine and clear, while overhead shines the wondrous intensity of the unfamiliar stars falling back tier on tier to the infinity of space’

And at other times he imparts something of the nature of the battles fought; this from his chapter on the Battle of Diamond Hill:
‘Moreover, from both left and right the Boer guns maintained an irregular but most accurate cross-fire directed at the top of the hollow, up which our advance had been made, and below which the bulk of our regiment now lay motionless in their outspread ranks. And for a good hour or more we sheltered each behind his rock or stone, while the air whistled and whirled with the bullets from the unseen ridge beyond poured over the edge of the hollow and fell mostly in flights and droves in the valley beyond, though many dropped among us. It was easy to distinguish the soft whirr of the long range Mauser, the angry hum of the ricochet off the rocks, the burring rattle of the hollow-nosed expansive bullet of which not a few flew by, or the more steady-going and business-like whistle of the Martini-Henry. And then came the shells, shrapnel and and common shell, whirling across the rocks in a slanting course from right or left, some bursting overhead and pouring their contents on us in a rushing whisk, some just skimming over our backs as we lay prone and bursting between our ranks, throwing ugly looking pieces of iron all around.’

After the war, Lloyd chose to continue his legal career in South Africa, moving initially to Bloemfontein, and later becoming K.C.; he was appointed a member of the Legislative Council of the Orange River Colony in 1907 and a member of the United Grand Lodge of England in Pretoria in 1913. He died at Pietermaritzburg in April 1938.