Orders, Decorations and Medals

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, S.A. 1901 (Lieut. E. R. Burne, Q Bty. R.H.A.) top clasp a contemporary tailors copy, together with Bronze Memorial Plaque (Edward Robert Burne) and various original documents, including three M.I.D. certificates (30.11.1915, 13.11.1916, 7.4.1918), 29th Divisional Citation certificate ‘for gallant conduct at Cambrai’, photograph of original wooden war grave cross, and various typescript letters of condolence from his brother officers, nearly extremely fine (2) £250-300

D.S.O. London Gazette 1 January 1916.

M.I.D. London Gazette 10 September 1901, 30 November 1915, 13 November 1916,and 7 April 1918.

Lieutenant Colonel Edward Robert Burne, D.S.O. was killed in action, France and Flanders, 1 October 1918. He is buried at Ypres Reservoir Cemetery, Belgium. (With confirmation of Q.S.A. and clasps, also copy of M.I.C. giving disembarkation date to France 9 September 1914 but showing no issuance of any Great War medals).

Letter From Brigadier General G. H. Jackson, Commanding 87th Infantry Brigade, B.E.F., 1 October 1918: ‘I am writing to you not to express sympathy or any nonsense of that kind because I know how you must feel the awful loss you have sustained by the death of your brother Lt. Col. Burne. Sympathy expressed in the formal form means nothing and I dont presume to offer it. I am writing because I know him well and because he was with me when he was killed. He was a great friend and his loss is a considerable shock to me.

The details are as follows. One of my battalions captured a certain area yesterday. I was with them and there was a lot of hostile machine gun work. The situation was fluid and obscure as darkness came on. This morning your brother and I therefor went down to see exactly how things stood so that he might be able to shoot over my infantry and so help them. Things were absolutely quiet. We left our horses in a place I knew of where they would be hidden and walked onto where the H.Q.S. of one of my battalions was. As we approached one single shot was fired at me but missed. I was leading at the time. I stood for a while examined my map and then turned right handed towards some cover, your brother was just behind me. Just after we turned I heard him exclaim just as a second shot was fired. I asked where he was hit, and he said ‘in the chest’. I went back to him and quickly got him behind the cover. There he just sank down and died. Several men were behind this bit of cover and did all they could but it was hopeless from the first. The bullet appeared to have made a very big hole on entering and not to have come out again. I fancy it must have been a shot at very short range. I do not think he suffered much. I half carried him in, he just said ‘they have got me’ and in replying to my question when he said ‘in the chest’, he then became unconscious and died almost immediately.

I cannot tell you how deeply sorry I am or how I feel his death. He was such a splendid character and beloved of all. He and some of his guns were attached to my 87th Infantry Brigade during the retreat when the Bosch went back from Builleul. We had worked so much together that I knew him well and had grown to like and admire him immensely.’