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Hugh Cracroft was a Captain in the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers (Princess Victoria’s). Cracroft was the son of Major-General Bernard Cracroft of Bath, and was educated at Bath College. He joined the Royal Irish Fusiliers in 1892 and fought with that Regiment on the North-West Indian frontier. He was posted to South Africa and participated in the relief of Ladysmith. Cracroft was wounded on September 9, 1900 at Groenvlei and subsequently went missing for 8 days before he rejoined his unit at Blood River Poort (See extract from Creswicke below). Cracroft remained in South Africa until the end of the war and earned the QSA and KSA with a respectable total of 8 clasps. Cracroft, then a Lieutenant Colonel, served with distinction in WW1, was mentioned 5 times in dispatches and won a DSO. He died in Garth Combe Down in Bath on May 10, 1923 at the age of 49, apparently from illnesses relating to his war service. He left behind his widow Georgina Montague Cracroft and his 3 sons with an estate valued at just under 2600 Pound Sterling.

Extract from Creswicke's Transvaal War





I have to disappoint the regulars on this forum who expect the short biography of this career soldier to be followed by pictures of a fine set of medals. All I posess of the man is a somewhat tattered pipe bowl, set with a Kruger dime. It was probably made for him during the war as the bowl features -besides his Regiment, name, and “Boer War” - only the years 1899, 1900 and 1901.