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Auction: 19002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 496

(x) Piquetberg District Mounted Troop

Just 22 Medals were awarded to the unit in October 1905.

Family group:

Queen's South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Pte. G. Coates. Piquetberg D.M.T.), nearly very fine and rare

Three: Acting Corporal F. G. E. Coates, South African Field Artillery

1914-15 Star (Gnr. F. G. E. Coates. S.A.M.R.-F.A.B.); British War and bi-lingual Victory Medals (A./Cpl. F. G. E. Coates. S.A.F.A.), nearly very fine and better (4)

George Coates is noted upon his son's attestation documents as 'Lt. Col. G. Coales (sic), Villa Marguerita, Burg Road, Rondebosch'; sold with copied roll entry.

Francis George Eugene 'Paddy' Coates was born around 1887 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and attested for the South African Field Artillery on 23 August 1915, having witnessed previous service with the Cape Peninsula Rifles, the Cape Field Artillery and the 4th Permanent Force Artillery Battery, S.A.M.R. - the first at Picquetberg when he was only 14 years of age.

A keen mountaineer, Coates spent his school holidays climbing the mountains of the Western Cape. He served in German East Africa from 1916, his future wife and family members waving him off at the docks at Cape Town. Coates later joined the Mowbray Golf Club but gave up the game following his marriage to Grace in 1940, when he joined the Bergvliet Bowling Club. In retirement he served on the board of directors of the Southern Cross, a Roman Catholic newspaper, dying at his home in Longueville Avenue, Bergvliet, aged 85; sold with copied research, including obituary notice, photographs of F. G. E. Coates, a group photograph at the time of departure from Cape Town, and original discharge certificate upon recognition of age by authorities, dated 29 December 1901, the reason given as 'medically unfit'.


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Sold for
£320