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Steam road transport crossing a spruit

Source: www.angloboerwar.com/forum/19-ephemera/3...-jack?start=78#94196

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

CBE (Military) Commander’s 1st type badge, gold (18ct) and enamel;
DSO GV, gold (18ct) and enamel, with integral top gold riband bar;
QSA (1) Orange Free State;
British War and Victory Medals, with small full-sized MID;
France, Third Republic, Legion of Honour, Officer’s breast badge, silver, gold appliqué, and enamel, with rosette on riband

CBE London Gazette 12 December 1919.
DSO London Gazette 1 June 1917.
MID London Gazette 23 July 1917.
French Legion of Honour, Officer London Gazette 17 March 1920.

Philip Henry Johnson was born in 1877 and served with the Steam Road Transport Department as assistant to the Deputy Assistant Adjutant General of Steam Transport in South Africa during the Boer War.


WO100/155p102

Employed by the Ministry of Munitions following the outbreak of the Great War, he was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Army Service Corps on 20 April 1916, and served with 711 Motor Transport Company during the Great War on the Western Front from 22 September 1916. He transferred to ‘A” Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps as a Workshop Officer on 18 November 1916, and then to the Tank Corps; with a background in heavry machinery and traction engines, by the end of the War he had risen to the rank of temporary Lieutenant-Colonel and was employed as a Superintendent in the Tank Design and Experimental Department. Post-War he directed the development of the Medium ‘Mark D’ Tank which achieved a top speed of 20 mph.

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

QSA (1) Cape Colony (E. F. Wilson, Stm. Rd. Trnspt.)

It was decided as early as October 1899 to send out a number of steam traction engines to South Africa, Colonel J. Templer, K.R.R.C. (Militia), being appointed Director of Steam Road Transport. In November 1899, a new unit, the 45th Steam Road Transport Company, R.E., was formed, and a number of civilian experts were engaged in England. The first lot of engines was unfortunately wrecked on the way out, which caused considerable delay, but work was started at Kimberley in a small way in March 1900, conveying supplies to Boshof, Barkley West, and to various camps. From the original numbers of 5 officers and 119 others, military and civil, the personnel had increased, when peace was declared, to 10 officers, 447 other ranks, military and civil, and 238 natives. The engines had increased in number from the 11 first sent out to 46.

A curious feature of its employment was that the enemy very rarely attacked a steam transport convoy. The suspicious nature of the Boers was in itself a great protection to the engines. When a traction engine had to be abandoned on the veld it was only necessary, in order to prevent its being damaged, to fasten a couple of wires to the engine and bury them in the sand.

It is a while since we saw a QSA to the Steam Road Transport. The medal to E F Wilson sold for a hammer price of GBP 550. Totals (VAT UK only): GBP 708. R15,300. Au$1,380. Can$1,250. US$890.