Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Major R. B. Bergne, Leinster Regiment, late King’s Royal Rifle Corps

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Relief of Mafeking, Rhodesia, Orange Free State, Transvaal (Lieut., K.R.R.C.) ; 1914-15 Star (Capt., Leins. R.); British War and Victory Medals (Major) good very fine and better (4) £420-480

Robert Brodribb Bergne was born on 8 November 1877. During the Boer War he served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 9th Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps and was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the Leinster Regiment in June 1901. Bergne served as a Railway Staff Officer from 11 September 1900 to 9 August 1901. He was accidentally slightly wounded at Colesburg on 15 April 1901. Bergne was promoted Captain in 1912 and with the outbreak of the Great War, entered the France/Flanders theatre of war with the Leinsters on 19 April 1915. Shortly afterwards, on 26 April, he received a gunshot wound to the right hand while serving at Ypres and was sent home to recover. Returning to France in January 1916, he was promoted Major in May 1916. During January - June 1916 he served as Brigade Major in the 62nd and 18th Divisions on the Somme; in June he was invalided home with a recurring injury to the knee. Another brief foray to France followed in February-March 1917 but for the most part he was employed training units at home for the remainder of the war.

Notwithstanding this longtime knee injury, in October 1939, at the age of 62, he wrote asking to be considered for employment with a Pioneer Unit, stating as his qualifications, ‘3 years articled to a Civil Engineer, Railway Construction work in S. Ireland & Portuguese East Africa (Beira Railway). Since the Great War Building Construction Estate Work, & recently in charge of the laying out of a Public Park (1938)’. Major Bergne died in a nursing home on 15 April 1945. Sold with copied service papers and other research including copied group photographs.