TROOPER A.K.S. ROBERTSON, GUN SECTION, 73rd (PAGET’S HORSE) COMPANY, 19th (PAGET’S HORSE)

TROOPER A.K.S. ROBERTSON, GUN SECTION, 73rd (PAGET’S HORSE) COMPANY, 19th (PAGET’S HORSE) BATTALION, IMPERIAL YEOMANRY. Queen’s South Africa Medal, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Transvaal, South Africa 1901 (officially impressed: 13502 TPR: A.K.S. ROBERTSON, 73rd. Coy. 19th. IMP. YEO:). Good Very Fine to Almost Extremely Fine.

Medal accompanied by extensive copied research, including biographical details, census returns, 8 pages of copied service papers, medal rolls.

Arthur Keith Stuart McAlpine Robertson was born in Sandgate, Kent, in 1860. He was a member of the Robertson family of Inverness-shire and Windsor, Co. Mayo, Ireland, the son of Captain Arthur Masterson Robertson, 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards. He is recorded in the 1891 census as being a 31 year old lodger living in Shirley, Millbrook, Hampshire and in the 1911 census as a 52 year old married man living with his wife, sister-in-law and “sick nurse” and a general servant, at 18 Gardnor Mansions, Hampstead. He is additionally recorded in the 1911 census as living on “private means”.

Prior to enlisting into Paget’s Horse, Robertson had been commissioned into the 36th Middlesex Rifle Volunteer Corps as a 2nd Lieutenant, on 2/3/1878. He resigned his commission on 21/2/1880. Robertson enlisted into Paget’s Horse at Suffolk Street, London, on 21/3/1900. At the time of enlistment he was 34 years of age and gave his trade as “none”. He never rose above the rank of Private and was discharged at his own request on 6/6/1901. Prior to discharge, Robertson had injured himself whilst on campaign, catching his foot on the stump of a tree, falling badly on his shoulder and being invalided to the Mafeking hospital. Robertson saw service in South Africa with the Gun Section, 73rd Company Imperial Yeomanry. Robertson died on 9th August 1911 at 42, Priorgate, Derby. He left an estate valued at £1,243.

Robertson was apparently a bit of a character and quite a sight to behold in the flesh, his Paget’s Horse enlistment papers noting that, at the time of his enlistment he was “tattoed all over body, arms, legs, chest & back”.

Captain Arthur Masterson Robertson, 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards, saw service in the Crimea, taking part in the actions at Balaklava and Inkerman and the siege of Sebastopol, and taking part in the charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaklava. Captain Robertson was the subject of a notorious court-martial extensively reported in the press of the day. In March 1862 he was charged with not being an officer and a gentleman, having publicly been insulted by a Colonel Dickson, but failing to seek satisfaction for the offence by challenging Dickson to a duel. Colonel Bentinck tried to pressure Captain Robertson into resigning from the regiment and he was bullied and persecuted by other officers of the regiment until he could hold out no longer.

Paget’s Horse, the 51st, 52nd, 68th and 73rd Companies, which served with the 12th and 19th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry, was an elite unit. The following description of that regiment, the man who raised it and its recruits is taken from “Absent Minded Beggars” by Will Bennett.

“They were public school-educated men recruited through advertisements in gentlemen’s clubs. The battalion was raised by George Paget, the son of a British general and a compulsive amateur soldier with a penchant for getting himself involved in any conflict that afforded the chance of action. He never seems to have been a regular officer but served in the Russo- Turkish War of 1877-8 and the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, as well as the Zulu War in 1879. Although aged 46 when the Boer War broke out, he went out to South Africa as second-in-command of his regiment and proved himself to be a man of some courage, being wounded twice. A portly figure who felt at home in the dining rooms and smoking rooms of Pall Mall, Paget recruited 500 officers and men from a tiny, hopelessly inadequate room at the Imperial Yeomanry Committee’s offices in Suffolk Street. However, it at least had the advantage of being only a short stroll from the clubs of which he was a member. Paget’s Horse wore a badge made up of the letters PH which provided a source of instant merriment for the wags on the streets of London, who suggested that it stood for ‘Piccadilly Heroes’ or more commonly for ‘Perfectly Harmless’. Gentlemen troopers such as Cosmo Rose-Innes, a barrister, found that wearing their new uniforms in the capital produced a rich variety of reactions and some odd social contradictions. He later recalled: “The khaki drew to its wearer, however, many amusing experiences the fervent ‘God bless you’ of old ladies in the bus, the friendly offers of navvies to “ave half a pint’ in the street, the respect of substantial citizens for one’s opinion on the war. The “ave half a pint’ situation was the most embarrassing. We were clad as troopers but flattered ourselves we bore the impress of officers and hence a conflict of emotions, the desire to be rollicking good fellows qualified by surprise that our would-be host should not detect the gentleman under the plain khaki.”