Beschreibung:

An impressive Boer War D.S.O. group of ten awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel T. E. Harrison, who commanded the 4th (Leicestershire) Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa and the 1/1 Hertfordshire Yeomanry in Egypt 1914-15 Distinguished Service Order, V.R., silver-gilt and enamels; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Transvaal, Wittebergen (Colonel, 7 Co. 4/Imp. Yeo.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Lt. Col., D.S.O., I.Y.); 1914-15 Star (Lt. Col., D.S.O., Herts. Yeo.); British War and Victory Medals (Lt. Col.); Coronation 1911; Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; Territorial Decoration, G.V.R., silver, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1911, the first with soldered suspension ring and slightly chipped reverse wreath and lower arm, and the clasp side-carriages of the Boer War awards sometime adapted for cavalry-style wear, otherwise generally very fine and better (10) £2000-2500 Footnote D.S.O. London Gazette 27 September 1901. The original recommendation states: ‘Detached patrols were frequently sent out at night to endeavour to surprise parties of the enemy, but with small result, until on 12 July at daylight, Colonel Harrison, with 300 Imperial Yeomanry, was successful in capturing 12 prisoners, nine carts and 60 horses.’ Thomas Elliot Harrison was born in June 1862, the son of T. E. Harrison of Whitburn, Sunderland on Wear, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, at which establishments he excelled himself on the river, latterly as President of the 3rd Trinity Boat House. Appointed a Lieutenant in the 1st Royal Dragoons in August 1885, he resigned his commission in November 1891, but was subsequently appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the Leicestershire Yeomanry. By the outbreak of hostilities in South Africa, he had risen to the rank of Captain, and he took command of the 7th Company on his arrival at Cape Town in March 1900. Taking his unit up country, where he joined the 4th (Leicestershire) Battalion at Thaba ’Nchu that May, he was granted the temporary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and, over the coming weeks and months, as part of Lord Roberts’ advance on Pretoria, and as a component of Sir Leslie Rundle’s force, his men were frequently in action, ‘moving gradually north, keeping the Boers in front, and letting none slip southward’. In November 1900, Harrison was appointed Second-in-Command of the 4th Battalion, and in May 1901 he became C.O. of the same unit. Awarded his D.S.O. for the above related sortie, which decoration he received from the King in October 1901, he was also the recipient of a “mention” (London Gazette 10 September 1901 refers). But these were not the only souvenirs to emerge from his period of command in South Africa, for he also brought home the town bell of Linley, which place the Battalion passed through ‘a great many times’ - it was subsequently ‘used for sounding the time in camp during the annual training of the Regiment’. Harrison remained in the Leicestershire Yeomanry on his return to the U.K., was appointed Second-in-Command in 1905 and C.O. in 1911, and finally resigned his commission as a Lieutenant-Colonel in December 1913. He had, in the interim, been awarded the Territorial Decoration (London Gazette 17 December 1912). Recalled on the outbreak of hostilities, he was given command of the 1/1 Hertfordshire Yeomanry, and served with the regiment in Egypt from November 1914 to January 1915, when he reverted to the Territorial Force Reserve. In May 1917, however, he was appointed an Area Commandant in France, in which capacity he served until June 1919. The Colonel, who retired in October 1921 - and was onetime Master of the East Galway Hounds - died in March 1939; an evocative photograph of him at ease on the veldt - with four fellow officers and his unit’s pet monkey “Adonse” - is held in the collections of the Rutland County Museum, Oakham.