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The trio to Major Eyton sold for a hammer price of GBP 1,100. Totals: GBP 1,364. R 29,840. AUD 2,620. NZD 2,850. CAD 2,330. USD 1,750. EUR 1,490.

Picture courtesy of Spink

QSA (5) Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (23345 Pte. C. Joy. 39th Coy. Imp: Yeo:);
1914-15 Star (1594 Pte. C. Joy. P.P.C.L.I.);
British War and Victory Medals (1594 Pte. C. Joy. P.P.C.L.I.);
Army MSM GV (1594 Pte. C. Joy. E. Ont: R.)

MSM London Gazette 18 January 1919.

Charles Joy was born at Crewkerne, Somerset in September 1870 and was a butcher by trade. He served in the 39th (Berkshire) Company, Imperial Yeomanry during the Boer War. With the outbreak of the Great War, he enlisted into the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry at Ottawa in August 1914 and served with them overseas. Joy was discharged in May 1919.

Together with a Peace Token.

Estimated at £240.

Sold for a hammer price of GBP 2,500. Totals: GBP 3,100. R 67,820. AUD 5,960. NZD 6,480. CAD 5,290. USD 3,990. EUR 3,390.

Picture courtesy of Clarke and Simpson

QSA (3) Wittebergen, Transvaal, Cape Colony (Lieut. J.M. Wilson 44Co. 12/Imp-Yeo).

Picture courtesy of Spink

[ Egypt Medal ];
QSA (5) Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Lieut: J. L. B. Claxton, Imp: Yeo:), the last two clasps rivetted together but separate from the first three;
[ Great War medals ]

MID London Gazette 17 January 1901.

John Langley Barry Claxton was born in 1862 in Maryborough, County Laois, Ireland. He was the son of John Claxton who had been Sergeant (868) 4th Dragoon Guards who had served in the Crimea (clasp Sebastopol) but was not a Heavy Brigade Charger as claimed in his obituary (December 1900). On retiring from regular service, he secured a post on the Permanent Staff of the Derbyshire Yeomanry. He also took a job as the Sanitary Inspector and Surveyor at Belper.

Claxton (jnr) was bought up in Derbyshire with his seven siblings. He left school aged 16 in 1878 and joined the Midland Railway as a clerk but resigned in 1880 and in 1881 he took a job as an engineering draughtsman, this did not last long either. He joined the Army choosing his father's regiment the 4th Dragoon Guards, number 2783. Shortly he was on active service in Egypt on the Gordon Relief Expedition. For this campaign the cavalry, Heavy and Light, were mounted on camels and he served as part of the Heavy Camel Corps. His first big battle came on 16-18th January 1885 at Abu Klea. It was a hard-fought battle where the Sudanese broke the British square and a popular soldier, adventurer and war correspondent Colonel Fred Burnaby was killed. Burnaby was 6' 4" tall and weighed 20 stones (127kg), a giant for the era. John's father's obituary mentions that John (junior) was one of the last men to speak to Burnaby before he died of his wounds on the battlefield. Happily, Claxton survived unscathed and returned to England.

By 1891 though he had left the army and was managing the Half-Moon Hotel, St Werburghs, Derby. He was married and his first child was born in 1892. Restless as ever, in 1894 on the baptism of his second child his trade is recorded as Brewer's stock taker living in Burton-on-Trent. The 1901 census however records John as an officer in the Imperial Yeomanry. The next clue as to John's whereabouts is a mention in dispatches on the 17th January 1902 "For conspicuous gallantry in action near Heilbron" on 14th November 1901. He is the only Yeoman mentioned alongside officers of Kitchener's Horse. The action took place at Tweefontein in the Orange Free State. A British column with "an unwieldy mass of cattle and vehicles" was returning to Heilbron when it was attacked. The KFS formed the rearguard and were hotly engaged, the Boers were driven off "who left eight on the field and carried off many more" (Official History p.333).

Claxton returned to England in 1902. At some stage he departs for Canada, apparently without his wife and four children. With the outbreak of the Great War, he enlists for the Canadian Army in 1914, taking ten years off his age, he was really 52. His experience and no doubt smooth talking secured him a place in the 19th Alberta Dragoons. Within two months he had been promoted to Sergeant. The regiment arrived in England in late 1914 and were sent to France in February 1915.

The regiment were sent to 1st Canadian Division to Ypres. On 22 April 1915 the Germans attacked starting the Second Battle of Ypres. They opened their attack using chlorine gas. The Dragoons were used in the rear to patrol roads, round up stragglers and perform reconnaissance. The 1st Canadian Division was withdrawn on 3 May suffering 30% casualties, almost all infantry. In May 1916 three regiments of Canadian cavalry were amalgamated to form three squadrons of the Canadian Corps Cavalry Regiment (re-named Canadian Light Horse March 1917). Claxton has been steadily promoted and in September 1916, he becomes RSM of the new regiment.

Claxton remained on the Western Front with periods of leave to the UK, presumably to see his family. He goes sick in late 1916 with dysentery, diarrhoea and diphtheria. Recovering he returns to his unit. He appears to leave the war in February 1918 when he was posted to the Canadian Cavalry Regiment Depot at Shorncliffe, Kent. In 1919 he is in Kinmel Park, North Wales, a camp for soldiers awaiting demobilisation. After five years abroad he sets sail for Canada from Liverpool in June 1919.

Despite his restless nature and the fact he moved to Canada without his family, his papers show he allotted money to them from his Army pay. The papers also record he allotted money to a woman in Liverpool who might have been his sister Clara and a woman in Edmonton, Alberta. She was called Isabella, a name not known in his immediate family.

Settling back in Canada John became the first permanent secretary-manager of the Army and Navy Veteran's Association and also worked as a land valuer. He died on 24 February 1951 in Saanich, British Columbia, Canada.

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

QSA (5) Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (33696 Pte C. A. Monk. 35th Coy Imp: Yeo:)

Charles Alfred Monk was born at Mortlake, Surrey. He enlisted on 8 February 1901 serving with the 11th Battalion 35th (Middlesex Yeomanry). He served in South Africa from 8 March 1901 during his time there he was wounded on 25 December 1901 at Tweefontein where he suffered a gunshot wound to the leg, as a result of this he was found unfit for further military service and was sent Home on 12 March 1902. He was discharged on 26 April 1902.

A force of some 500 men of the Imperial Yeomanry with a gun (79 btty) and maxim all under the command of Maj F.A. Williams, 1st South Staffordshire Regiment, was in camp on the farm protecting the head of a blockhouse line under construction from Harrismith to Bethlehem. The detachment was camped on a hill, Groenkop, with precipitous sides to the west and south and a gentle, well entrenched slope to the east. On the night of 24/25 December 1901, detachments from eight commandos comprising some 500 burghers under the command of Chief-Cmdt C.R. de Wet silently scaled the steep west face in stockinged feet taking the defences completely by surprise. Led by Cmdt W. Mears and Cmdt G.A. Brand, the burghers completely overran the camp within an hour. De Wet left at dawn with some 240 prisoners as well as two guns, 20 waggons, supplies of ammunition and tents, and 500 horses and mules. British casualties were 57 killed (including Williams) and 88 wounded; the Boers lost 14 killed and 30 wounded; among those killed were Cmdt G.J. Olivier of the Bethlehem commando. This action is known to Afrikaner historians as that of Groenkop or Krismiskop, Groenkop having become known as Christmas Kop.

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

QSA (3) Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (15136 Tpr. J. Goode. 74th. Coy. Imp. Yeo.);
KSA (2) (15136 Pte. J. Goode. Imp: Yeo:);
Natal 1906 (1) 1906 (... J. Goode. Transvaal Mtd. R...);
Coronation 1911 (Tpr. J. Goode. I.L.H. No. 709) contemporarily engraved naming;
1914-15 Star (Sjt. J. Goode 5th M.R.);
British War and Bilingual Victory Medals (Sjt. J. Goode 5th M.R.);
Colonial Auxiliary Forces Long Service Medal, GV (Sgt. J. Goode I.L.H.)