*PRISONER OF WAR* BOER WAR MEDAL 2985 SYRIA 107TH IMPERIAL YEOMANRY LANARKSHIRE
$299.00
SOLD
Offered is a Queens South Africa Medal (1899 – 1902), with 4 clasps CAPE COLONY, ORANGE FREE STATE, TRANSVAAL. SOUTH AFRICA 1901, SOUTH AFRICA 1902, impressed named 2985. PTE T. SYRIA. 107TH COY IMP. YEO. Comes with copy service papers, medal roll, prisoner of war extract and newspaper article.
Thomas Foster Syria, was born at Biggar, Lanarkshire in 1881, a shoemaker by trade he was serving with the 9th Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers when he volunteered for the Imperial Yeomanry for service in South Africa on 19/2/1901 at Lanark.
Originally posted to the 17th Company he was transferred to the 107th Company, 6th Battalion 17/04/1901. He served in South Africa 6/3/1901 – 4/8/1902.
Taken prisoner of war (P.O.W.) 13/11/1901:
Captured at Palmietfontein Hill on 13 November 1901, Gazetteer refers: 'On 13, November 1901 Lt-Col WB Hickie based at the farm Brakspruit sent out a force of about 95 officers and men from the 103rd and 107th companies Imperial Yeomanry commanded by Major Haughton, IY to reconnoitre the hill in search of the enemy. Three miles from the hill Major Haughton sent four troops under Captain Woolf to occupy the hill while he remained behind with 1 and a half troops. Captain Woolf signalled back that there was a party of mounted men under a hill two miles to the right. As Major Haughton tried to identify these men he was attacked from the right rear by a large party of 300 Boers. They held the Boers off for 1 and a half hours before surrendering, elements of Captain Woolf's party were also captured. British losses were five men killed, four mortally wounded, 14 wounded and 70 captured.' In this action, the Boers lost 4 killed and 8 wounded.
Another version reports:
Meanwhile, Boer resistance continued in the western Transvaal. Lt-Col W B Hickie, with a force of mounted troops and infantry, totalling about 870 men, was engaged in covering the construction of blockhouses on the Schoonspruit. On 13 November 1901, Hickie lost heavily at the farm, Brakspruit, 32km north-east of Klerksdorp, when two squadrons of Imperial Yeomanry (drawn from the 103rd and 107th Coys, 2nd Bn, and the 107th Coy, 6th Bn, IY), whom he had sent forward to reconnoitre, were destroyed. Ten men were killed or mortally wounded, eleven were wounded, and 64 were taken prisoner. In this action, the Boers lost four men killed and eight wounded (Wilson, Vol II, p 856; Maurice & Grant, Vol V, pp 339-40, 348; Watt, 2000; and Amery, Vol V, p 229)
The roll records P.O.W. at Brakspruit 13/11/1901 and released. Returning home to discharge 11/8/1902 at Aldershot. He died in 1945 at Glasgow.
