Lot 635
635
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more
Pair: Private W. Knight, Rifle Brigade, Queen's South Africa, six clasps, Cape Colony, Tugela Heights, Relief of Ladysmith, Transvaal, Laing's Nek, Orange Free State [Last clasp loose on riband] (Pte., Rifle Bde.); King's South Africa, two clasps (Pte., Rifle Brigade), one or two edge bruises and slight contact wear, otherwise generally very fine (2)

Details
Pair: Private W. Knight, Rifle Brigade, Queen's South Africa, six clasps, Cape Colony, Tugela Heights, Relief of Ladysmith, Transvaal, Laing's Nek, Orange Free State [Last clasp loose on riband] (Pte., Rifle Bde.); King's South Africa, two clasps (Pte., Rifle Brigade), one or two edge bruises and slight contact wear, otherwise generally very fine (2)
Special notice
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Private William Knight was born near Nuneaton and attested locally for the Rifle Brigade in March 1898, aged 22 years. Embarked for South Africa with the 1st Battalion in October 1899, he was wounded at Pieter's Hill on 27.2.1900, when the Rifles attacked the Boer positions under a galling fire - after an earlier attempt by the Irish Brigade - and suffered some 60 casualties in securing the enemy's positions.

Knight was again wounded, this time 'dangerously', when Major Gough's Mounted Infantry was ambushed at Blood River Poort on 17.9.1901. What should have been a surprise attack by the British against Botha's Natal invasion force rapidly became a ineffectual defence against a charging Boer force of some 500 men. In an action that lasted just ten minutes, the British lost six Officers and 38 men killed or wounded and six Officers and 235 men missing. Lieutenant L. Price-Davies, King's Royal Rifle Corps, won the V.C. for trying to save the guns of 69th Battery in this action.

Returning to the U.K. in October 1902, he was posted to Malta in April 1904 and back home again in December 1905. Knight was afterwards transferred to the Army Reserve and eventually discharged in March 1910.