Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Somaliland 1902-04 (3113 Pte. W. Hill, 3rd Rifle Bde.) good very fine, rare to unit £400-£500

Dix Noonan Webb, July 2004.

Only 2 Officers and 29 Other Ranks of the 3rd and 4th Battalion, Rifle Brigade, were awarded the Africa General Service Medal with clasp Somaliland 1902-04, all but one serving as part of the Mounted Infantry.

Walter Hill was born in Bow, London, in 1875 and attested for the Rifle Brigade at Woolwich on 14 February 1894, having previously served in the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, Essex Regiment. He served 3rd Battalion in India from 18 January 1898 to 5 July 1903, and then in Somaliland from 6 July 1903 to 22 June 1904, where he was one of the section of 28 riflemen, under Captain M. G. E. Bell, selected to serve as No. 2 (Bengal) Company, British Mounted Infantry. He was discharged on 13 February 1906, after 12 years’ service.

Sold with copied service papers; medal roll extract; and an article entitled ‘The Rifle Brigade in Somaliland 1903-04’ from the Autumn 1995 O.M.R.S. Journal.