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The MC group to Sgt Major Powell which sold at DNW 19 months ago for a hammer price of £1,400, was then offered at Wellington Auctions for £2,350, is now listed by the London Medal Co at £1,900.

Picture courtesy of Spink

RVM VR;
QSA (6) Cape Colony, Tugela Heights, Orange Free State, Relief of Ladysmith, Laing's Nek, Belfast (8425 Pte. G. Wise, 4th K.R.R.C.), clasp back-straps adapted for mounting

RVM presented by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle on 30 November 1900 (The Geneological Magazine Vol. IV, p417, refers).

Wise and Prince Christian-Victor the only members of the 4th Battalion to be in receipt of the Queen's Medal & these 6 clasps.

George Wise was born on Warfield, Windsor on 24 December 1871 and served as Personal Soldier-Servant to Prince Christian-Victor from 1892. The Prince was the son of Princess Helena, third daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and was the favourite grandchild of Queen Victoria. He holds the honour of being the only member of the Royal Family to have played First Class Cricket. Entering the King's Royal Rifles Corps in 1888, he served with the 4th Battalion in South Africa, with Wise in close order. The pair went out on the Braemar Castle on 6 October 1899. His master tragically died of enteric fever at Pretoria on 29 October 1900, aged just 33. When the Medal roll was drawn up in July 1901, Wise was entered on a supplementary roll noting:

'This private soldier servant to Prince Christian-Victor was brought out in 1900 and is now at Cumberland Lodge Windsor.'

Wise was clearly well-respected by the Schleswig-Holstein's, for he was taken into the household of Princess Marie Louise. She latterly penned a letter of recommendation for him:

'George Wise was personal servant to the late Prince Christian Victor for 8 years...his devotion to my brother was decorated personally by HM the late Queen Victoria...After my brothers death, he became my Steward and Sec: in charge of all my household a/cs and my entire household. He was with me from 1900 to 1916...I can not recommend him too highly, & is absolutely fitted for any position of trust.'

Wise served during the Great War with the Army Service Corps Expeditionary Force Canteens in Spring 1917, being Sergeant-Major of an Officers' Club at Dieppe. He served just 77 days before being discharged with a Pair.

Wise died at Hadley Gardens, Chiswick on 27 February 1963. His diary was used in part for the book Christian Victor - The Story of a Young Soldier.

Sold for a hammer price of £1,500. Totals (inc VAT on the commission for the UK only): £1,860. R36,800. Au$3,290. Can$3,020. US$2,430

CHITRAL TO VAAL KRANTZ via THE WARREN HASTINGS
The long delayed cataloguing and cross-referencing of IL's collection has thrown up some research possibilities from the back of the cupboard; this example handed over to Kevin Asplin some months ago -
IGS medal, 1895 , clasp "Relief of Chitral" , engraved to "6200 Pte. J.Tomlinson. 1st Bn., K.R.Rifle Corps"
QSA medal, clasps Cape Colony, Relief of Ladysmith, Transvaal and Laing's Nek, impressed naming as above but Regiment as "K.R.R.C.
KSA medal clasps SA1901 and SA1902, impressed naming identical to QSA.

After militia service, James Tomlinson, aged 20 years and three months, hailing from Clitheroe, Lancashire, occupation "weaver" attested for service as Regimental number 6200 with the Kings Royal Rifle Corps at Preston on 27th January, 1891. His basic and corps training ran for eleven months - then came a posting to Burma with the KRRC's 4th Bn. During October of 1892, Pte. J. Tomlinson was part of a draft sent to Rawalpindi after an outbreak of cholera had struck down half of the strength of KRRC's 1st Bn., stationed at that location.
Garrison service in India for 1st KRRC continued until the next outbreak of trouble on the Frontier; this time in Chitral - a small state lying among the lower spurs of the Himalayas. On 3rd March, 1895, the fort in Chitral Town came under siege by irate locals and news of its defence by a scratch garrison caused quite a stir in the Raj and in late Victorian Britain. The response was rapid. Two separate columns were formed for the relief and after every man in the 1st KRRC had been inspected for physical fitness, that regiment joined the column marching from Peshawar.
Tasked with scaling the heights of the Malakand Pass on 3rd April 1895 - where the Swati tribesmen had fortified the spurs of the hills with stone walls - 1st KRRC distinguished itself and did so again at Khar the next day. There was, however, more hard marching to be done and the Peshawar column did not reach Chitral until 16th May 1895; only to find that the other relief column marching from Gilgit had accomplished the Chitral relief almost a month earlier on 20th April!
Back on garrison duty in India at Jullundur, 1st KRRC was next marked for duty in Mauritius. Boarding the RIMS Warren Hastings in Bombay, the vessel sailed for Mauritius via Cape Town on 10th December 1896. Pte. J. Tomlinson is known to have been on the strength of one of 1st KRRC's Coys. remaining on that ship at Cape Town and further evidence to that effect may be found in a personal deposition made many years later in his PRO file.
The story of the wreck of the Warren Hastings off Reunion on 14th January 1897 has been related many times - and so has the staunch conduct of the soldiers on board. Kipling's evocative " ,,,, to stand and be still to the Birkenhead drill ..." may have only been penned the year previous - yet all aboard would have known of the tradition and once more proved it was not an empty phrase.
When finally reaching Mauritius, Pte Tomlinson's time there was short. his Military History Sheet shows he next served in South Africa between May and June 1897 and then it was back to England and the Reserve until November 1899. Then it was off to South Africa again for active service with 3KRRC.
Once in Natal, 3KRRC formed part of the 6th Bde. under Maj. Gen. Littleton. At Colenso, they were on the fringe of the action and saw their first heavy fighting on 24th January 1900 when they advanced in widely extended order to make a diversionary attack on the Twin Peaks, North East of Spion Kop. Gaining their objective, 3KRRC was able to "somewhat abate" the Boer fire being directed on the right flank of the troops holding the main ridge of the Kop. However, 3KRRC's position was under a "galling fire" and was in danger of being cut off. By 1830 hrs., the regiment was ordered to retire and by midnight had re-crossed the Tugela. The cost of 3KRRC's part in the battle was eighty killed and wounded.
3KRRC next saw action during Gen. Buller's second attempt to relieve Ladysmith - at Vaal Krantz Kop. There on 5th and 6th February, 3KRRC was to take part in an operation intended to roll up the Boer position on Bracksfontein Heights and open the way to Ladysmith. Instead, things for 3KRRC turned out to be a repetition of the events of Spion Kop on a smaller scale. For Pte. Tomlinson's Bn., in the memorable words of the author of Vol.IV of "The Annals of the KRRC", it turned out to become "an isolated position taken in the enemy line, made a cockshy by the Boers for a certain time, and then a withdrawal". Mutterings were heard.
At some time on 6th February, 1900 Pte James Tomlinson was twice wounded by Boer rifle fire - in the left thigh and abdomen. He was one of the twenty other ranks having wounds inflicted on that occasion. For him, it was off to the No.4 General Hospital at Spearman Hill, then to the hospital at Mooi River. Apparently, both wounds were "through and through" and Pte. Tomlinson was fortunate that he had been struck by full metal jacketed projectiles; rather than the soft nosed of hollow point variants sometimes used by the Boers. He was pronounced Fit for Duty on 24th February, 1900 and in the words of his medical report "Volunteered to go back to the front again".
After the forces of Roberts and Buller had joined hands, Pte. J. Tomlinson earned his "Laing's Nek" clasp during the clearing of Natal and subsequently, Stirling tells us, 3KRRC were mainly engaged in guarding the railway line and fighting on either side of it. In "The Annals of the KRRC" Vol.IV, that service is elaborated on to the extent where, from the end of July 1900, 3KRRC operated in the Heidelburg district; saw garrison duty at Malachadorp, built and occupied block houses on the Natal railway and was otherwise occupied in column work until the end of the campaign.
Pte. James Tomlinson became Time Expired and received his discharge from the service on 26th January, 1903. His discharge papers only show his mother as NofK. The very large PRO file provided by Kevin Asplin notes that there were Court Martial documents relating to Pte. J.Tomlinson "Lost in the wreck of the Warren Hastings'" (doubtless providentially!) and his Defaulter book entries to 3rd March, 1900 totalled eight (ranging from drunkenness, AWoL and improper language). He suffered the usual consequences. Nevertheless, our man had later mended his ways somewhat and upon discharge was confirmed as "Character VG' and with two GC badges.
Awarded a pension of one shilling and sixpence per day for life due to his wounds suffered at Vaal Krantz, those injuries began to trouble him more and more in successive years to the extent he was unable to work at his trade. His PRO file contains many submissions on his behalf for pension increases and, frankly, they do not make comfortable reading. Thanks to his wife (who, like her husband, worked as a weaver), they were able to keep things together to some extent.
At the commencement of the Great War, James Tomlinson again came forward; in September 1914 he was employed on home service with KRRC as a batman (officer's servant). In 1917, he was briefly with the 5th Labour Bn., and then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (later RAF) - firstly as a 2nd Class Private, then as 143464 Air Mechanic Class 3 at two shillings per day with No.4 Training Squadron. As an A.M.Cl.3 under supervision he would have assisted in the servicing, rigging, fuelling and prop-swinging of training aircraft such as the DH6 (aka "The Clutching Hand") Avro 504 and possibly the archaic Maurice Farman "shorthorn". While James Tomlinson was described on original enlistment as working as a "weaver", he clearly had some mechanical aptitude - doubtless due to a need in his calling to be able to adjust machines used in fabric weaving. He was discharged Medically Unfit from the RAF on 30th November, 1918.
Post war, James Tomlinson worked as a commercial traveller in cattle fodder and continued his financial battel with authority. Pensioner James Tomlinson passed away in the presence of his daughter Ellen at Blackburn, Lancashire on 31st March 1950 aged 79 years.
Any post such as this cannot really do justice to the very full life of James Tomlinson KRRC. This writer sees a man who freely enlisted, saw two arduous stints of overseas service - and suffered the effects of wounding in South Africa for much of the rest of his life. Yet that did not stop him stepping forward once again for Home Service in the Great War. He needs to be remembered for more than just his name on a trio of campaign medals.
Thanks to all who have read this far.
IL.

IL,

Very much enjoyed reading about James Tomlinson this morning. Thank you for posting such a detailed account.

I have long believed that had the KRRC not been recalled from Twin peaks, the outcome of the battle on Spion Kop would have been quite different.

Best wishes
David

Picture courtesy of DNW

QSA (5) Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (2960 Pte. S. Simpson. 4th K.R.R.C.);
AGS 1902 (2) Somaliland 1902-04, Jidballi (2960 Pte. S. Simpson. 4th K.R.R.) suspension re-affixed on the last with small test cuts either side of claw

David - thank you very much for posting these medals.

Samuel Simpson was a SMETHWICKIAN!!! Born in Smethwick (2nd November 1878) and raised in Smethwick (living at 66 Cross Street, Smethwick when he attested in Birmingham on 21st April 1900). Married Agnes Wright c1909. 1911 living at 71 Suffrage Street, Smethwick with mother-in-law. Emigrated to Canada c1912. Enlisted in Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force May 1915. Became Lance-Corporal. Canadian 1921 Census living in York, Ontario. Died 27th October 1943 in York, Ontario,

Have just registered with DNW - may need some advice.