Description
Queen’s South Africa, 2 bars, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, 126 3rd Class Trooper A.T. Graham, South African Constabulary.
Officially impressed: “126 3rd Cl: Tpr: A.T. Graham S.A.C.”
Confirmed on the medal roll which notes: “Discharged 25th January 1901”.
Also issued later on with a KSA medal named to the First Railway Pioneer Regiment.
Alfred saw service in numerous regiments during the Boer War, as scribbled onto his various medal roll entries.
They record that he saw service as numbers 1728 and 3595
Serving with the 3rd Railway Pioneer Regiment (No 3422)
Johannesburg Mounted Rifles (No 1788 and 35095),
Gorringe’s Flying Column (Sergeant, no Number),
The S.A.C. (No 126)
Kitchener’s Horse (No 9751)
Enlistment for the Joburg Rifles recalls:
Alfred Thompson Graham was a 23 year old Irishman, a Law Clerk in peacetime who stood at 5 foot 11 inches.
Son of David Graham of Cranbrooke, Five Mile Town, County Tyrone Ireland.
Enlisted into the Johannesburg Mounted Rifles, one of his many units served with on 13th July 1901, with 6 months of experience.
Alfred Thompson Graham was born in Clogher, County Tyrone, Ireland on 19th September 1876, the son of David and Margaret.
It would appear that he took his opportunity to leave Ireland to join the South African Constabulary, who were going all over the United Kingdom enlisting young men for the Force.
After the war he chose to stay there, marrying a South African Woman and in 1904 and later died during 1948.
On 27th April 1904 at Johannesburg, he married Hester Jacoba Lodewica Van Zyl.
He died aged 64 on 13th November 1940 at the General Hospital in Germiston, Transvaal, recorded as “Alfred Thomas Graham”, and had worked as a Commercial Traveller.
