THE INDIA GENERAL SERVICE MEDAL 1895 AWARDED TO PRIVATE T. BARBER, 2ND BATTALION DERBYSHIRE REGIMENT, ALSO SAW SERVICE DURING THE BOER WAR WITH THE 2ND DERBYSHIRES AND WAS TAKEN PRISONER OF WAR DURING THE ACTION AT ROOIVAL ON 11/4/1902, WHILST ATTACHED TO THE 10TH BATTALION MOUNTED INFANTRY.
India General Service Medal 1895, 2 clasps, Punjab Frontier 1898-98, Tirah, 1897-98 (officially named, engraved in the correct running script style: 4294 Pte. T. Barber 2d. Bn. Derby. Regt.). Attractively toned, Good Very Fine to Almost Extremely Fine and with a length of original ribbon.
Medal accompanied by copied extract 1895 India General Service Medal roll confirming medal and clasps, extract Queen's South Africa Medal roll confirming also entitled QSA Medal with Cape Colony and Orange Free State clasps, along with extract from a separate QSA roll, which indicates that Barber was also awarded the Transvaal clasp, on 3/9/1902, which was undelivered and later recorded as having been returned to the ordnance stores at Woolwich in September 1908.
Medal also accompanied by extract Boer War Casualty Roll, confirming Barber taken prisoner at Rooival on 11/4/1902 and subsequently "rejoined", the casualty roll recording Barber as one of ten men from the 2nd Derbyshires taken prisoner of war at Rooival (all attached 10th Mounted Infantry, and all later released and "rejoined").
Copied extract from the "Official History of the War in South Africa, 1899-1902" giving a detailed account of the action at Rooival also accompanies medal. During that action 1,700 Boers commanded by General De La Rey, firing from the saddle, attacked a number of British columns commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Hamilton, a form of surprise massed attack that De La Rey had previously used with great success at Bakenlaagte, Lake Chrissie, Vlakfontein and Moerdewil, but which had proved less successful at Doornbult. De La Rey's success at Rooival was to be his final victory, the official history recording that, after Rooival "from this time until the end of the war, De la Rey's commandos were driven like sheep over the country which they had once hunted like a pack of wolves" and that during the peace negotiations that were then taking place, De la Rey "was now to raise the voice which had urged them (his fellow commandos) to victory in favour of their submission, for he knew that now that the weapon which he had forged was shivered, there was nothing left in the armoury of his country."
