Hi David,
I must apologise and admit that I am the culprit who snaffled the Qumbu medal!
As you know I was fortunate to have spent a fair amount of time helping to edit and formulate the catalogue layout for the HL auction and you will appreciate that I had a fairly long time to salivate over some of the items on offer. The Qumbu medal was one of them. The night before closing I got stuck into endeavouring to find out just who “H.H. Everett” or “H.H. Peverett” was. A quick search on the very useful website
www.familysearch.org
provided the answer and clearly the medal roll rather than the Boer War casualty record is correct. Henry Herbert Peverett is the gentleman who was wounded and whose medal was listed under Lot No 352.
During the Second Boer War (1899-1902) Elliott (later Sir Henry) once again commanded Britain’s native forces in the Transkei. It is recorded that on 21 November 21 1901 a 53-man Boer commando, avoiding pursuit by British forces in the Northern Cape, attempted to cross the Drakensburg Mountains through Thompson’s and Jordaan’s Pass into the Transkei. Near the village of Ugie they were stopped by a company of 300 Transkei Irregulars, and “driven up the mountain and forced to abandon 40 of their horses and pack animals”. In the skirmish, four Boers were killed. Six Black Transkei soldiers also died, along with their white officer, Captain Herbert Walter Elliot (b.1878), son of the Transkeien Chief Magistrate Major Sir Henry George Elliott.
Yet another reference records that they were “driven over the Brakensbeg, on the other side of which, on the spur known as the Gatberg, they were encountered by a body of local defence troops under Captain Herbert Walter Drummond Elliott (the son of Sir Henry George Elliott, K.C.M.G. Chief Magistrate of the Transkeien Territories). A sharp affair, in which Captain Elliott was killed, resulted in the repulse of the enemy, who left eight killed and many wounded, as well as fifty horses, on the field as they made of northwards.” Captain Elliott’s death certificate records that he was “Killed in Action at Gatberg Nek near Maclear”. A second death certificate is signed by “H.G. Scott” who annotated his signature “present at death”. H.G. Scott was the son of John Healy Scott who was inter alia Special Commissioner on Northern Border, Resident Commissioner in Pondoland and later Chief Magistrate for East Griqualand. Henry George Scott served as Assistant Magistrate at Kokstad – then being transferred to South West Africa – Gibeon, Grootfontein and finally Engcobo in the Transkei before being appointed as the President of the Native Appeal Court in the Transkei in 1935. In researching Peverett’s Qumbu medal I was therefore pleased to be able to confirm that my group to Lieutenant H.G. Scott was evidently another participant at the Gatberg affair. Hopefully further research will provide additional information.
Three – QSA no bar: (Lieut. H.G. Scott. Matatiele N.C.); George V Jubilee medal 1935; George VI Coronation medal, 1937 the last two medals unnamed as issued. Good Very Fine.
I have always pondered the meaning of a biographical reference for Samuel Barrett, a Basutoland Magistrate (Assistant Commissioner at Quithing – south east border of Basutoland) who received both the South African General Service medal and the QSA medal as one of the 6 or 7 Basutoland officials who were awarded the QSA medal. It is generally accepted that the native Basuto remained very largely neutral during the Anglo Boer War however a short biographical note for Samuel Barrett included in the Colonial Service Register states “Organized and commanded force of Basuto on Drakensberg in Boer War during operations of General French in Barkly East, Cape Colony”. I guess that this may have taken place at the same time as “Elliot and Peverett’s’s Gatberg Affair”.
Pair – SAGS medal Bar: 1877-8 (Capt. S. Barrett. Albany Fingo Levy.); QSA medal no bar (S. Barrett, Esq,) last medal skimmed and re-engraved (most probably officially as other similar “Basutoland” QSA medals are similarly named.) Extremely Fine.
Unfortunately, Barrett’s QSA medal is skimmed and re-engraved as “S. Barrett, Esq.”. The engraving, however has been very neatly executed in the identical style to the similarly named and also skimmed and re-engraved QSA medal awarded to Assistant Commissioner Charles Griffith held in the Albany museum in Grahamstown. Clearly this is the original “Basutoland” medal awarded to him.
You will appreciate that I was not going to let Captain Peverett’s medal slip from my net and bid accordingly.
