Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Private R. H. Hopkins, Devonshire Regiment, later Royal Army Medical Corps

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Transvaal, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902, unofficial rivets between first and second clasps (5367 Pte. R. Hopkin. Devon: Regt.); 1914 Star (3150 Pte. R. H. Hopkins. R.A.M.C.); British War and Victory Medals (3150 T. Cpl. R. H. Hopkins. R.A.M.C.) edge bruising and contact marks to QSA, generally very fine (4) £160-£200

Reginald Harding Hopkins was born in Barnstaple, Devon, around 1881, and attested for the Devonshire Regiment at Exeter on 26 June 1899. Posted to South Africa from 17 October 1900 to 8 March 1901, and again from 14 April 1902 to 25 December 1902, he was advanced Lance Corporal in the 2nd Battalion 10 July 1902.

Transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps, Hopkins served in France with No. 8 Field Ambulance from 20 August 1914. Serving as part of 3rd Division, his unit witnessed the Battle of Mons and the rearguard action at Solesmes. Present at the Battle of Le Cateau, the Battle of the Marne, the Battle of the Aisne, and further operations at La Bassee, Messines and Ypres, the 8th Field Ambulance spent the winter of 1914-15 heavily engaged in patching up the wounded on the Western Front and sending them down the line. Advanced Acting Lance Corporal 12 September 1915, Hopkins continued in the British Army under the Military Services Act of 1916 and ended his Great War campaign in England at Princess Christian’s Military Hospital, Englefield Green. Transferred to Army Reserve 9 August 1919, his Army Service Record lists his future address as Somerset Street, Port Talbot.

Sold with copied Army Service Record.