TOPIC:

Greetings.

Herewith photo's of BSAC (Rhodesia 1896) and QSA medals awarded to my great grandfather, Samuel Hadley Weight.

He served as a Corporal in the BSAC Engineers, later joining the Kaffrarian Rifles as a Private.

I also have his commemorative Edward VII coronation medal (1902) in my possession.

Note that the QSA clasps are fixed in a slightly different order to standard, but from what I have read, I believe that this was fairly common for those who moved around a fair bit.

WGOODWIN
As noted previously, they are nice medals. Yes, QSA medals were sometimes issued without a full clasp entitlement and if a late claim was approved, the medal could be returned for adjustment; or the clasp added locally. In your GGFs case, according to the roll (WO100/254 page 72), a marginal note tells us that the "Wepener" clasp was not issued until 11/3/1905. Incidentally, that roll shows no entry for "Orange Free State"; entitlement to the clasp "Wittebergen" rules out the award of OFS.
Interestingly, I don't see Pte. S.H.Weight of the Kaffrarian Rifles on the 1902 Coronation medal roll for that unit. (WO100/111 page 120). You might care to investigate that.
Regards
IL.
.

Thanks for this information.

Interesting about the OFS clasp as this seems to have possibly been added later as it was not fixed in the same manner (seems it may have originally been loose). Not sure how this came to be added?

Also unsure about the coronation medal. It is not inscribed with his name but has a small number 21988 at bottom reverse side.

Unfortunately he died at a fairly young age and seems little or nothing recorded in the family history about his time as a soldier.

A Samuel Hadley Weight born 1869 in Bristol, England and died in the Transvaal in 1910 appears on 29 accessible family trees on Ancestry. One is called the “Weight Family Tree” but does not contain the most info about him. There seems to be some consensus that he married a lady called married Eleanor Bowmaker who was born of English parents in South Africa in 1882 and died in South Africa in 1973. They had a son William Hadley Weight who died in Johannesburg in 1977. In turn he had a daughter Dorothy Adelaide Allen (I assume the Allen was acquired by marriage) who died in Johannesburg in 2000. In turn she had a son but no details are given for him as presumably he is still alive and kicking in SA. Needless to say I have not looked at all 29 FT’s but in line with your observation none of the top half dozen appear to have twigged that Samuel Hadley Weight fought in the Boer War.

WAGOODWIN
Coronation medals were not issued named; though doubtless some recipients did have their details engraved on them. I don't know what the number "21988" on the example you have actually means. Should you wish to learn about your GGF's Boer War service, I suggest you obtain a copy of the Book: "The Kaffrarian Rifles 1876 to 1986" by Coleman. Not that your GGF is mentioned in its' index; but it would be good background reading.
Regards
IL.

Many thanks for the information.

I have been looking into the silver coronation medal on the internet.

It doesn't appear to match the military issue, so I suspect that this was one of the civilian variants produced.