Description
Queen’s South Africa, 5 bars, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal SA 1901 SA 1902, Lieutenant Theodore Septimus Mason, 3rd Bn Royal Scots Fusiliers, on attachment to the 1st Bn Suffolk Regiment.
Officially engraved in typical Officers style: “Lieut T.S. Mason. Rl: Scots’ Fus.”
Confirmed on the medal roll of the 1st Bn Suffolk Regiment, with whom he was attached to on active service.
With a contemporary matching miniature medal.
Very unusual medal as Lieut Mason was a young and newly commissioned officer who was serving with the 3rd (Militia) Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, who did not see any active service, and got himself attached to the 1st Battalion Suffolk Regiment to take part in the Boer War from 1901-1902, making an unusual medal.
Lt Mason saw service in South Africa with the 1st Bn Suffolk Regt from 9th November 1901 until 31st May 1902.
Obituary in the Hampshire Telegraph, 15th March 1946:
“Teaplanter’s Death at Bosham
The death occured on Tuesday of Mr Theodore Septimus Mason, of Monks Horton, Brook Lane, Bosham, a former Tea Planter in Ceylon.
Mr Mason retired to Bosham in June last year, owing to ill health, after 40 years as a tea planter on the Uva Ketawella estate in Ceylon.
In his younger years he was a well known sportsman. He leaves a Widow and one married daughter.”
Theodore Septimus Mason 1881-1946, was born during October 1881 in Ipswich, Suffolk.
His Grandfather George Mason, was the Mayor of Ipswich from 1875-6. The family had been living in Suffolk for generations. After his death he was described as a “Pillar of municipal life in Ipswich.”
The son of George Calver Mason and Leittia Maria Williams. His father was a Seed Crusher (Oil Cake Merchant) and Paper Manufacturer in Suffolk.
Theodore was one of a large number of children, having about 10 other siblings.
The family would also employ in their home a Governess, 1 Cook, 1 Nurse and 2 Housemaids.
He would lose 2 Brothers in World War 1, his younger brother Lieut Kenneth Ralph Mason, of the Suffolk Regiment was killed in action in France on 21st June 1915.
A similar fate would befall his other younger brother Lt Wilfrid Howard Mason, Royal Engineers, a Mining Engineer who was killed in action in the crossing of the Dialah River in Mesopotamia on 9th March 1917.
Following his Military Service he went to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to take on a career as a Tea Planter.
During 1911 he returned home to marry Violet Marion Goodhart, the eldest daughter of George Imson Goodhart, whose family owned the Langley Park estate.
He would return to Ceylon for the rest of his long career with the “Uva Ketawella” Estate.
