I had sure we had started a thread on the subject of bronze QSAs awarded to European recipients but I cannot find one so hence this post. This was prompted by item 95 in the next City Coins sale:
QSA (0) bronze (Robert Jobson)
The write up says:
In the OMRS Journal, vol. 20, pp. 101-108, there is an interesting article on the issue of the bronze QSA, by Mr. J.V. Webb. He saw official correspondence for the receipt of sufficient copper & tin to manufacture 225 000 bronze QSAs. Also a letter informing Kitchener of 100 000 bronze QSAs shortly to be despatched to him in South Africa 100,000 bronze QSAs do seem to have been produced, but only limited quantities were actually delivered to South Africa and the remainder broken up. WO 100/296 gives only 9 083 bronze QSAs issued to Indian troops. Webb lists the names of 113 white and coloured men and women recipients of a bronze QSA, identified by personally searching through 500 000 names contained in the 190 volumes of the QSA rolls. These included 4 women, but Webb located a correspondence stating that lady typists were not eligible for the medal. Also included are 15 men of the Border Scouts, who were all Coloured men. Tylden states in The Armed Forces of S.A. that only the officers of the Border Scouts were European. This then leaves a probable total of 94 white men who received a bronze QSA. From the occupations given by Webb for each recipient, one concludes that they were all civilians. Many were servants of officers and presumably paid by their masters.
Webb lists Jobson as the civilian Groom to the famous Major General Andy Wauchope CB CMG who was killed in leading the Highland Brigade in their disastrous attack on the Boer positions at Magersfontein on 11 December 1899.
Nothing more is known about Jobson, but that he may have died in South Africa in view of the fact that the medal was acquired from his son living in South Africa. He probably chose to remain in South Africa when the war ended. In Life of Major General Wauchope by Sir George Douglas (1904), it would appear that Wauchope had departed from his home town near Edinburgh for South Africa quietly and unexpectedly. The following paragraph is of interest.
"But the public was not to be thus denied of its chance of demonstrating in his honour, and accordingly the send-off fell to the share of his groom, Jobson, who, accompanying a favourite mare, left Edinburgh at a somewhat later date en route for South Africa. This, like Wauchope's own departure, was on a Sunday night, when I am assured that the Waverley Station was besieged by a crowd of sympathizers, every one of whom was eager to get a clap of the General's mare or a shake of the hand from the General’s man”.
A five page article entitled Maj. Genl. Wauchope Where is his grave?” which appeared in the 1973 Paratus Magazine. The author describes the battle of Magersfontein, analyses the British casualties totalling 978 and the Boer estimated 300. Of more interest are the circumstances of the discovery of Wauchope’s body, his wounds, the transportation of his body and the burial at the British camp at Modder River. Then the full circumstances surrounding the second military funeral and re-burial a week later at Matjiesfontein, a station on the main railway from Cape Town, but 650 kilometres south of Magersfontein. One may presume that Jobson as the General’s trusty Groom, might well have been present at both these burials.
