Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Corporal H. C. Littleford, Bedfordshire Regiment and Western Light Horse

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (3872 Lce. Corl. H. Littleford, Bedford Regt.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (3872 Corpl: H. Littleford. Bedford: Regt.) light contact marks, generally very fine (2) £140-£180

Herbert Charles Littleford was born in Hertfordshire in 1881 and attested for the 4th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment on 6 December 1898. Appointed paid Lance Corporal 16 January 1900, he proceeded to South Africa on 27 February 1900 and later enlisted in the newly created Western Light Horse as Corporal on 5 May 1902. A somewhat controversial unit, its nucleus consisted of ‘fifty Britishers’ principally South Africans, with the balance composed of surrendered rebels ‘who preferred five shillings a day to a scanty subsistence’. According to A Fight to the Finish by Major C. G. Dennison, D.S.O., Officer Commanding:

‘The life of the corps was a short one, for peace soon followed, and, excepting a bit of a skirmish outside the town, practically the last of the war down west [Vryburg], the Western Light Horse saw no service in the field.’

Sold with copied Army Service Record and private research which notes further service during the Great War in the 1st Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment and Military Foot Police.