A Collection of Medals for The Battle of Elandslaagte, 21 October 1899

A most unusual Spanish War 1898, Boer War and Great War group of five awarded to Major S. Norton-Taylor, 10th Canadian Infantry, late 1st Florida Infantry and Imperial Light Horse

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Cape Colony, Elandslaagte, Defence of Ladysmith, Orange Free State, Transvaal (Lieut., I.L.H.); 1914-15 Star (Lieut., 10/Can. Inf.); British War and Victory Medals (Major); U.S.A., Spanish War Service Medal 1898, the edge officially numbered ‘30475’, generally good very fine and rare (5) £1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals for The Battle of Elandslaagte, 21 October 1899.

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Seymour Norton-Taylor, who was born at Bovey Tracey, Devon in November 1878, first saw active service as a Private in ‘C’ Company, 1st Regiment of Florida Infantry in the Spanish War of 1898, having enlisted in that corps at Tampa, Florida that May. Discharged at Tallahassee at the end of the same year, he next travelled to South Africa, where he enlisted in the 1/Imperial Light Horse and was present at Elandslaagte and the defence of Ladysmith, and participated in later operations after being commissioned in the 2nd Battalion.

Having then made his way to Canada where he worked as a rancher, Norton-Taylor volunteered for the Overseas Expeditionary Force at Valcartier, Quebec in August 1914 and was quickly commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 10th Battalion Canadian Infantry. Embarked for England in the following month, and thence for France, he was wounded by shrapnel in his right hand on 13 March 1915, and evacuated to the U.K.

Rejoining his unit in the Field as a Temporary Captain a month or two later, he was seriously wounded by an explosion in his dugout at Ploegsteert on 23 October 1915:

‘During the month of October 1915, Private Clutterbuck found a nose-cap of a shell. He took it into the dugout, where he accidentally dropped it. An explosion followed with the result that Captain Norton-Taylor, who was in the dugout, was severely wounded in the legs and Private Clutterbuck was also severely wounded - he afterwards died as a result of his injuries’ (an official witness statement refers).

Rushed to a Casualty Clearing Station at Bailleul, and thence to the Red Cross Hospital at Le Touquet, both of Norton-Taylor’s legs were amputated below the knee, but, after gangrene set in, it was necessary to amputate the right leg above the knee. Yet the latter still caused problems by the time he was strong enough to be transferred to a hospital in the U.K., and a further ‘shortening operation’ took place in December 1916. Indeed Norton-Taylor did not return to duty until May 1917, having by then mastered the use of his artificial limbs, and was seconded to the Adjutant-General’s Branch as, appropriately enough, a Hospital Representative. He was honourably discharged as a Major in October 1919, and, given his terrible wounds, lived to a ripe old age, dying at Westgate, Kent in December 1963; sold with a quantity of research.