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Auction: 19002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 744

(x) Prince Alfred's Guard Mounted Infantry

Queen's South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Johannesburg (946 Pte. J. Turnbull. Prince Alfred's G.M.I.), officially re-impressed naming, good very fine and better

J. Turnbull was taken prisoner south-west of Johannesburg in September 1900 and lucky to survive the ensuing incident:

'On September 18, Privates C. S. Skivington, Hatcher and Turnbull of Prince Alfred's Guard were captured south-west of Johannesburg by a party of men from Field-Cornet Marais' group of burghers and taken to Modderfontein Laager, an incident with a most unfortunate sequel. At midnight on September 24-25 the three men from Prince Alfred's Guard and Corporal Logan of the Royal Engineers were put into a mule wagon and driven some distance into the hills, where they were dumped on the veld with the curt order to make themselves scarce. This they lost no time in doing, according to Hall's account, but had not gone many yards in the grey dawn before they heard shots.

Skivington and Logan fell mortally wounded and Private Hatcher received a bullet in his right shoulder, fracturing his collar-bone. Seeing the others beyond recall, Turnbull and Hatcher, wounded though he was, managed to struggle to Elandsfontein on foot where Hatcher was attended to by Dr. Harding and evacuated as soon as possible to the Johannesburg Hospital' (Diary of a National Scout, P. J. Du Toit, 1900-02, The Guerilla Years, refers).


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Sold for
£140