THE BRITISH WAR MEDAL AWARDED TO COLONEL J.W. YARDLEY, C.M.G., D.S.O., 6TH INNISKILLING DRAGOONS, AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE SERVICES OF THE INNISKILLING DRAGOONS DURING THE BOER WAR “WITH THE INNISKILLING DRAGOONS DURING THE BOER WAR 1899-1902”

THE BRITISH WAR MEDAL AWARDED TO COLONEL J.W. YARDLEY, C.M.G., D.S.O., 6TH INNISKILLING DRAGOONS, AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE SERVICES OF THE INNISKILLING DRAGOONS DURING THE BOER WAR “WITH THE INNISKILLING DRAGOONS DURING THE BOER WAR 1899-1902” (LONDON 1904). British War Medal (officially named, impressed in plain block capitals: COL. J.W. YARDLEY.). Attractive old dark tone, Extremely Fine, virtually as struck, and with a length of original silk ribbon.

Medal accompanied by extracts from census returns for 1851, 1871 and 1911, copied extracts from QSA Medal roll and published Boer War casualty roll, copied WW1 Medal Index card and extracts from “Who was Who” and Sir O’Moore Creagh’s “The Distinguished Service Order 1886-1923”.

The following biographical details regarding Colonel John Watkins Yardley, C.M.G., D.S.O., 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, have been extracted from census returns, Yardley’s Medal Index card, “Who Was Who” and “The Distinguished Service Order” by O’Moore Creagh.

Born 17/7/1858, John Watkins Yardley was the son of John Yardley (1813-1867) of Chesterfield Lodge, Staffordshire. He was educated at Repton, Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Yardley was commissioned Lieutenant, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, 10/5/1882, promoted Captain, 26/10/1887, and retired to the Reserve of Officers on 2/8/1899. He was subsequently promoted Major (Reserve of Officers), 29/11/1900, Lieutenant-Colonel (Reserve of Officers), 18/10/1902, and Colonel (Reserve of Officers), 29/7/1916.

Yardley first saw active service during the Bechuanaland Expedition, 1884-85 (no medals awarded), and in Zululand, 1888 (no medals awarded), and was A.D.C. to the Governor of Natal, 1887-90. When the Boer War broke out the then Captain Yardley was recalled to active service from the Reserve of Officers. When the Inniskilling Dragoons went to South Africa, Captain Yardley rejoined his regiment from a shooting expedition in India and commanded A Squadron from 13/4/1900 to 16/10/1900, when he was wounded.

Yardley took part in a number of important raids behind the enemy lines and fighting patrols, during the Boer War.

On the night of 11th May 1900 Captain Yardley commanded the mounted escort for Major Hunter Weston’s raid behind the Boer lines to blow up the railway line north of Kroonstadt. The scout for the raid was the American frontiersman and Indian fighter Major Frederick Russell Burnham, one of the most remarkable characters to emerge from the Boer War.

Burnham was born to a missionary family on a Lakota Sioux indian reservation in Minnesota, near the small pioneer town of Tivoli, on 11/5/1861. He had is first experience of warfare at an early age, while still a baby. During the Dakota war of 1862, Chief Little Crow and a band of Sioux warriors attacked the nearby town of New Ulm, Minnesota. When the attack took place, Burnham’s father was away from home, buying ammunition. When Burnham’s mother saw a group of Sioux warriors approaching her cabin in war paint she realised she could not escape carrying her baby, so she hid the one year old Frederick in a basket of corn husks in a corn field and fled for her life. Once the attackers had been repulsed, she found the family home burnt to the ground, but the baby Frederick safe, asleep in the basket of corn husks. Life as missionaries on an indian reservation on the frontier was difficult enough without indian raids. As a result, the Burnham family eventually moved to Los Angeles, California, in search of an easier life. In 1872, however, Burnhams father died, leaving his family destitute. When Burnhams mother and 3 year old brother moved to Iowa, the 12 year old Frederick stayed on in California, to make his own way in life, working for the next few years as a mounted messenger for the Western Union Telegraph Company in California and the Arizona Territory. As a young boy growing up on the reservation, Burnham had learned the ways of the American indians. An education in field-craft that stood him in good stead when he saw active service for the first time at the age of 14 as an indian tracker for the US Army during the expedition mounted to capture the Apache chief Geronimo during the Apache Wars. Later, in 1882, in Globe, Arizona, Burnham was briefly drawn into the Pleasant Valley War of 1882-92, a feud between families of ranchers and shepherders, becoming a hired gun. On realising that he had chosen the under-dogs (and eventual losing side), and in an increasingly precarious position, the 21 year old Burnham fled the conflict and made his way to the notorious frontier town of Tombstone, Arizona, which only a couple of months earlier had been the scene of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. In Tombstone, Burnham became involved with a party of smugglers based in Sonora, Mexico. Later, in Arizona, he was for a time Deputy Sheriff of Pinal County. By the early 1890s it was becoming clear that the opportunity to explore uncharted territories in America was coming to a close (in 1890 the US Census Bureau had formally closed the American frontier, ending the system of selling land cheaply on the western frontier to pioneers). Still hungry for adventure and new challenges, Burnham at this point turned his attention to Africa, travelled with his wife and son to the newly founded state of Rhodesia, and signed up as a scout for Cecil Rhodes British South Africa Company. In Rhodesia he took part in the Matabele wars of 1893 and 1896, being one of the few survivors of the Shangani River Patrol of 1893. During the 1896 Matabele War Burnham personally accounted for the Matabele witch-doctor Mlimo, whose death effectively brought the 1896 war to an end. The following description of the 11th May 1900 raid for which Burnham was the scout and Yardley commanded the escort, one of the most highly decorated raids of the Boer War, is taken from Lieutenant-Colonel Yardley’s own history “With the Inniskillling Dragoons”.

“When the Cavalry Division under General French arrived at the farm of Boshof, on the night of May 11, Major Major Hunter Weston, commanding the Royal Engineers with the Division, volunteered to attempt a raid on the railway communication north of Kroonstad, similar to the excursion which he carried out so successfully on the night previous to the occupation of Bloemfontein. General French gave his sanction. Volunteers were called for, and again it had to be a matter of selection. Taking Mr. Burnham, the American scout, and Lieut. Charles, R.E., Major Weston chose the following eight sappers: Corporals C. Hyde and F. Kirby Sappers J. Austin, C. Collins, T. Costin, J. Crisp, B. Fearnley, and T. Pearce. As it was anticipated that it might be necessary to employ force to pass the demolition party through the outer picquet line, Captain Yardley, Inniskilling Dragoons, and Lieut. Harrison, Scots Greys, accompanied the expedition with a squadron of 50 men and 60 horses picked from the 1st Cavalry Brigade. Crossing the Bospoortspruit, the little column of desperate men moved north, parallel with the Valsch River. Major Weston led the column, steering by the stars, and Burnham brought his extraordinary faculties of sight and ear into use to prevent the party from running into any outlying patrol or picquet. About a mile north of the Modderspruit Burnham discovered a patrol of three men moving across the front. As it was impossible for the column to avoid detection, Major Weston determined to capture the group. The cavalry divided and charged in upon both flanks. It was a wonderful scene: the thud of the galloping horses in the deep silence of night, the sabres flashing bare in the strong moonlight, the intense excitement of the moment. The mounted men proved to be Kaffirs, and formed a patrol which had been sent out by a Boer picquet lying about a mile to the east. At this point Major Weston considered that the outlying cordon was pierced. So he left Captain Yardley with the cavalry, in observation of a strong Boer picquet on the right, with orders to return to camp as soon as the raiding party was clear. Then the little group, now eleven strong, with two led horses, moved north-east to a point in the Fairfield property. Here, at the juncture of a wire fence, a mounted picquet of the enemy was descried. Burnham made out others all along the fence. This is the custom of the Boers when throwing out night outposts. Vedettes are stationed all along wire fences, with their heads against the posts. As soon as a wire is touched or cut, some one of the vedettes is immediately aware of the fact. Major Weston tried to avoid the patrol, but when the party returned to the fence they found that it had moved parallel with them and had collected the vedettes along the line. Burnham dismounted and reconnoitred the group. He found that it was, as had been thought, in observation of the party, and that four dismounted men had been detached to lie in ambush under a small nek which lay in the line of advance. To shake off this following the party dived into the deep and wooded Dornspruit, and when they reached the dam found that they were clear. They then crossed the Damfontein Hills, from which position they could see the Boer camp-fires, extending in an almost unbroken line from Kroonstad to Honing Spruit. The retreating force seemed to be encamped all along the railway line. So, slipping past two mounted patrols, the party turned in to hit it off. Burnham again went forward and found a spruit in which it would have been possible to have hidden the horses. But, just as the party arrived at the edge of the depression, a Boer camp-fire flared up in their faces from within the cutting. Time was now getting short. There was only half an hour of moonlight and an hour of darkness left before dawn. Retiring west from the spruit and passing round a farm full of Boerseven moving through their hobbled horsesthe gallant little band made another attempt to reach the railway. As had been hoped, the railway fence was here. But just as the party struck it the head of a large commando of mounted Boers turned up over a fold in the veldt. Thanks to Burnham, the Boers were seen before they made the English out. Major Weston at once moved his party twenty paces into the veldt, and in a whisper ordered the men to lie flat upon their horses’ necks. As the commando passed the leading file challenged. For a moment it seemed that it would be necessary to give the preconcerted signal that the little party might break up and as individuals make a bid for safety. But as no response was given the Boers apparently mistook the group for a bunch of loose horses and passed on. It was a moment of extreme suspense, a moment when you hear each beat of your heart. But the crowd of burghers pressed on and, laughing and joking, passed into the shadow. The horses were then led further away from the line. Again the party stumbled upon another wire fence running parallel to the line. As Lieut. Charles was cutting this, three Boers suddenly sprang up out of the grass. Hunter Weston and Burnham each immediately covered a man, and Lieut. Charles with great promptitude seized the carbine of the third. They proved to be three scouts of the Afrikander Horse. They were left with Lieut. Charles and the sappers beyond the wire fence. Major Weston and Burnham then went forward alone and on foot to attempt the demolition. Almost at once they met a picquet in search of the prisoners. Avoiding these by lying flat on the ground, they waited until they heard the men move on before again going forward. The Boers disappeared, accusing the patrol of deserting its post. Boers were all round, but the two desperate men crawled on to the road. Here they lay in the grass and waited while another long commando passed. Then came some wagons, and under the dust and noise both crossed the road in safety. Moving thus in the intervals between wagons and troops, they were able to crawl to the top of the embankment and worm themselves flat against the ballast of the permanent way. The charges were fixed and the fuses lighted under Burnham’s broad-brimmed hat while the enemy were passing within ten yards of the spot. They waited until Burnham’s practised ear told him that there was an interval in the wagon-train, and then they hazarded the journey back towards the horses. Then came the explosion. It was followed by a babel of noise from waking men, scared cattle, and a rush to horse. Under cover of this tumult Major Weston and Burnham reached the horses, and, mounting the prisoners on the led horses, the whole party moved off north-west. They were soon clear of the surrounding Boers, and they trotted steadily on for three miles till they were out of all possible contact with the disturbed convoy round the railway. At sunrise they were clear. But the increasing light suddenly disclosed a picquet of twenty Boers directly across their path. Fortunately they were dismounted and engaged in catching their horses. One man only remained by the fire. The party galloped down upon this man. He surrendered at once the stock of his rifle was immediately broken, also those of six others lying by him. There was no time to wait, and the party pressed on to get clear of the rest of the Boers before they could collect their scattered horses and rifles. At first the burghers seemed dumfounded. But they then collected and opened fire, slightly wounding Sapper Collins in the hand. Seeing that it would be necessary to check this Boer picquet now left with twelve rifles, Major Weston ordered everyone to gallop on, and himself remained behind to cover the retreat with rifle fire. Providence aided him, for his first shot emptied a saddle. The whole pursuit was checked, and the Major was able to rejoin his party unmolested. An hour later the gallant little cortege with its three prisoners was clear of danger. They returned quietly to camp, having accomplished an expedition which, in its sequence of miraculous escapes, reads more like a fairy tale than a stern episode in war, and which presents one of the most stirring, gallant, and self-sacrificing side-histories of this war.”

All of the officers and men who took part in the raid on the railway line north of Rustenburg were decorated for gallantry, Corporal Kirby was awarded the Victoria Cross, Major Hunter Weston, the Scout Burnham and Lieutenant Charles, Royal Engineers, were decorated with the Distinguished Service Order (Burnhams DSO was the highest award for gallantry awarded to an American citizen during the Boer War), and Corporal Hyde and the six other sappers all received the Distinguished Conduct Medal. No members of Yardleys escort were decorated, their contribution to the raid perhaps overshadowed by the actions of the raiders themselves.

Later, on 19th May 1900 Captain Yardley took A Squadron with orders to reconnoitre the railway to Honing Spruit and report on its condition. This he accomplished after a good deal of fighting.

On 22/5/1900 Yardley provided an escort for a second raid behind enemy lines by Major Hunter Weston on the Boer railway system. The following account of that raid is also taken from Yardleys With the Inniskilling Dragoons.

May 22. This evening, with fifty Inniskillings and fifty Scots Greys, under Major Scobell, I formed an escort to Major Hunter Weston to destroy the railway in the neighbourhood of Grootvlei or Wolverhoek Station, so as to prevent the enemy, if possible, from getting two 6-inch guns away. We took forty led horses, and rode twenty-five miles in three hours without drawing rein or meeting opposition our plan being, had we done so, to charge through it. We saw a Cape cart in the distance, galloping away from a large farm-house, but too far to pursue. We found the line already destroyed by the enemy, several commandos being bivouacked near it. Avoiding them, we rode all night, raiding Olivier’s farm for some bread. It was about midnight and very dark when we silently surrounded the house. There was a difficulty in finding any entrance, and our feelings must have been akin to those of burglars. The barking of dogs was the only sign of life. Our time was precious, and Major Scobell tried with me to effect an entrance at doors and windows, expecting at any moment we might be fighting hand to hand. At last, after nearly breaking down a door, a Kaffir boy appeared, and, rushing in, we demanded the inhabitants. A female voice only was heard from an inner room, and presently, half-dressed, Madam Olivier appeared. She seemed more alarmed for our own safety than anything assured us that she had not seen her husband for over a year that the Boers had been there in force in the afternoon, eaten everything, were close by, and would assuredly kill us and, oh ! we must be careful. On our demand she produced a few loaves of bread and some eggsluxuries we did not often see, and for which we duly paid. Then we made a rapid search. The good lady denied the existence of any arms, and, in deference to her feelings and the probability of our troops being there next day, we did not burst open some cupboards of which, she said, her husband had taken away the keys. According to later lessons, perhaps we were wrong but our object was only to get food for the men and accomplish our special mission, so we hurriedly left and went on through the night. It was very dark, and, beyond a general direction, we got quite lost, a native we were trusting to as a guide being quite out of his reckoning. Once we got into a very bad piece of ground, with mealie fields and wire all round us the sound of animals moving in the dry mealies made us suspicious that we were in close proximity to a Boer force or picquet. Silently we dismounted. I crawled off with Major Scobell to reconnoitre. We first got into a small hovel, where we dared to strike a match in order to consult our compasses and, having done so, we decided our bearing was right. Then he went off to satisfy himself about the moving horses, and returned still very suspicious. Meantime our native boy guide, a servant of Lieut. Paterson, had found a kraal, and brought another native from it, whom we impressed to our aid. It was difficult to get our small force silently started, as many, being dog-tired, were sound asleep, with reins over their arms. How is it the British soldier can sleep on such emergencies? One man I could not shake to life so, kicking him with all my might, I placed a revolver at his head and growled Hands up !’ This successfully brought him to life, and once more we got on our weary march. At 2.30 A.M. we struck Du Plessis’s farm. Having fixed outposts with Major Scobell, we repaired to the farm, where the Du Plessis made themselves most obliging, procuring anything we wanted. Du Plessis was one of the good old Dutch who had fought against us for seven months, being a field-cornet outside Ladysmith. He complained that his sons were still away on commando, but was, I think, himself sincere in his protestations of belief in our cause. After our fifty-mile ride, those not on outpost were glad to throw themselves down for one or two hours’ welcome slumber. May 23. At 6 A.M. General French arrived with the division, which we rejoined.

On 27/5/1900, during the advance on Johannesburg, Yardley’s A Squadron of the Inniskilling Dragoons and B Squadron commanded by Major Dauncey captured a strategic hill-top position during the fighting to take Elandsfontein, the then Major (later Lord) Allenby and Captain Yardley narrowly escaping being killed during the capture of the hill-top by British artillery fire.

Captain Yardley was wounded in action near Bethel on 16/10/1900. Subsequently invalided, Captain Yardley used the time spent recovering from his wounds to write his history of the Inniskilling Dragoosn in the Boer War, “With the Inniskilling Dragoons in South Africa”, a book which Major F.R. Burnham, the American Scout, referred to when giving details of his own career for Sir O’Moore Creagh’s “The Distinguished Service Order 1886-1923”.

Lieutenant Colonel Yardley saw service in France during WW1 as Deputy Director Remounts with the Cavalry Corps, 4th and 5th Armies, entering that theater of operations on 4/10/1914. Yardley was mentioned in despatches, 1/1/1916, 15/6/1916, 11/12/1917, 20/5/1918 and 5/7/1919. His DSO was announced in the London Gazette of 3/6/1916, page 62, (King’s Birthday Honours List) “For distinguished service in the field” and his C.M.G. was announced in the London Gazette of 3/6/1918, page 6452 (Kings Birthday Honours List), “For services rendered in connection with military operations in France and Flanders”. In the post-war years Yardley was District Remount Officer, Gloucestershire. A member of the National Hunt Committee, he was also Sporting Editor of the Cavalry Journal, a well-known cross-country and steeplechase rider, tennis and polo player, rider to hounds, big game hunter, fisherman and Regimental Historian. Colonel Yardley died on 28/11/1920.

In addition to the CMG, DSO and BWM, Colonel Yardley was also entitled to the Queen’s South Africa Medal with clasps Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill and Belfast, the 1914 Star and bar and Victory Medal with mentioned in despatches emblem.

Captain Yardley is recorded in the 1911 census as a 53 year old retired Lieutenant-Colonel living at “Beaufort”, Marle Hill, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, with his 45 year old unmarried sister.

The former Yardley family home, Chesterfield Lodge, on Raikes Lane, Chesterfield, Staffordshire, is still in use as a private dwelling.

There is only one WW1 Medal Index card for an officer with the surname Yardley and initial J or J.W., the John Watkins Yardley who was the recipient of this British War Medal.

There is an extensive online Wikipedia biography of Major Burnham which, including footnotes, runs to some 30 pages.

The raid that the then Major Hunter-Weston led on the railway line north of Kroonstad on the night of 11/5/1900 was one of a number of raids behind enemy lines that he commanded during the Boer War. In addition, on 13/3/1900, a party of men under Hunter-Weston blew up a bridge on the railway line north-east of Rustfontein, thereby preventing the Boers reinforcing their defensive position at Bloemfontein by rail, and also preventing the Boers from evacuating trains and railway rolling stock from Bloemfontein northwards, in advance of British forces. The blowing of the railway bridge rendered the Boer position at Bloemfontein untenable, with the result that their forces surrendered the after the bridge was blown. Once Bloemfontein fell it presented a much needed prize of trains and rolling stock, the British Army capturing 25 locomotives and 108 trucks, 50 of which were loaded with coal. These trains and rolling stock were to prove of fundamental importance during the advance on the Transvaal capital of Pretoria, since, when the Boers had earlier blown the railway lines over the Tugela River it had left the British Army without any railway transport during the advance north, supplies instead having to be transported by ox cart. On 2/6/1900 Hunter Weston also led a raid designed to prevent the Boers evacuating the 4,000 British prisoners of war from the prison camp at Waterval Onder, near Pretoria, eastwards along the railway line towards Delagoa Bay in Portuguese East Africa. This raid was undertaken on the basis of the opinion of the British Armys medical experts, that the removal of the prisoners from Waterval Onder to the disease-ridden low country east of Pretoria would have led to the death of approximately fifty percent of the prisoners.

The early promise and gallantry displayed by Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir, KCB, DSO, G.St.J.) Aylmer Hunter Weston (1864-1940) and attendant promise of more to come militarily was to prove illusory. During WW1, in both Gallipoli and France and a Lieutenant-General and Divisional Commander, Hunter Weston failed abysmally. Universally criticised, he has since been described variously as “one of the most brutal and incompetent commanders of the First World War” (Robin Prior, “Gallipoli, The End of the Myth”) and as “one of the Great War’s spectacular incompetents” (Les Carlyon’s “The Great War”), leading to him to be since labelled as one of the WW1 “donkey” generals.