Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Natal, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902, unofficial rivets between clasps (Lieut. C. A. Bamford. R. Welsh Fus.) good very fine £240-£280

Charles Arthur Bamford was born at Bromborough, Cheshire, in July 1880, and educated at Uppingham School. He entered the Army in the Queen’s Militia and served in South Africa with the 1st Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers during the Boer War. Transferred to the Leicestershire Regiment 7 February 1902, he was posted to the 3rd Battalion in 1910 and was on the Reserve of Officers at the outbreak of the Great War; recalled to his regiment, he disembarked in France as Captain on 14 October 1914 and is recorded in the Cheltenham Chronicle of 3 June 1944 as being wounded in action in April 1916:
‘As a reward for distinguished service he received the rank of Brevet-Major and he was also mentioned in despatches in March 1918. He was serving in Egypt when the war finished.’

Mentioned in Despatches on 12 March 1918 for his work in Mesopotamia with the Lines of Communication, Bamford took his retirement from the Leicestershire Regiment in 1923, having served 21 years with the Regiment. Relocating from Pentre Celyn Hall, Denbighshire, to Cheltenham, he served during the Second War as second-in-command of the Cheltenham Home Guard. He died in 1944, whilst representing the local Home Guard at the memorial tribute to General John Vaughan Campbell (”The Tally-ho V.C.”), when he suffered a heart attack and collapsed and died in his pew.

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