Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant R. S. G. Higgins, 3rd (Militia) Battalion, Oxfordshire Light Infantry, who later became a tea planter in Ceylon

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 date clasp block loose on riband, as issued (Lieut. R. S. G. Higgins, 3/Oxf. L.I.) engraved naming, unit officially corrected; Ceylon Volunteer Service Medal 1914-18 (R. S. G. Higgins) edge bruise to first and suspension claw re-pinned, generally very fine (2) £240-£280

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.

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Robert Seton Graeme Higgins was born in 1882 at Eton, Buckinghamshire, and was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, Oxfordshire Light Infantry, on 25 December 1899. He was promoted Lieutenant in October 1900 and served with the Battalion in South Africa during the Boer War, before resigning his commission in May 1903. He emigrated to Ceylon on or before 1907, in which year he is recorded as having joined a Masonic Lodge at Kandy. From 1912 to 1930 he is recorded as the owner and manager of the Ellagalla Tea Plantation, Galaha, Hantane, Ceylon. He returned to the U.K. after the outbreak of the Great War and was commissioned into the Worcestershire Regiment on 10 December 1917, serving in 1st Reserve Garrison Battalion. He relinquished his commission on 17 December 1920. He saw no active service overseas and was not awarded any medals for his service in the Great War. He died on 20 January 1941 and is buried at Weybridge Cemetery, Elmbridge, Surrey.