Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Lieut. R. A. Henderson, Gordon Hdrs.) good very fine £250-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals to The Gordon Highlanders and Associated Units from the Collection of A.J. Henderson.

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Robert Anderson Henderson, who was born in about 1871, was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School. Joining the 4th Volunteer Battalion of the Gordons as a Private in 1897, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the 1st Volunteer Battalion in February 1900, and in August of the same year was advanced to Lieutenant.

Henderson served in South Africa with the 3rd Volunteer Service Company, which became ‘K’ Company of the 2nd Battalion, arriving in Durban in April 1901 and returning with the Company to the U.K. in May 1902. During this period he kept a brief record of the Company’s experiences and this was featured in Donald Sinclair’s History of the Aberdeen Volunteers, a title that was published by The Aberdeen Daily Journal Office in 1907.

Granted the honorary rank of Lieutenant in the Army in consideration of his services in South Africa, Henderson was further advanced to Captain in the 1st Volunteer Battalion in November 1905. Three years later he went to Tobago where he engaged in cocoa planting until he was forced to return to the U.K. in 1914 as a result of ill health. He died at Aberdeen, at the early age of 45 years, in November 1916.