Description
Queen’s South Africa Medal, bar Defence of Ladysmith, Private William Thomson, Ladysmith Town Guard. A Scotsman who was resident in Ladysmith by the time of the siege.
Officially impressed: “Pte W. Thomson. Ladysmith Town Gd.”
Confirmed on the medal roll, with copied research.
Rare to the actual Ladysmith Town Guard, there were circa 14,000 Defence of Ladysmith clasps issued to various units involved in the siege, but only about 165 medals were noted as being issued for the unlucky original residents who formed the Town Guard.
Mr William Thomson, was born during 1861 somewhere in Scotland.
When the war broke out, he was one of the original residents, being employed at the time as a Carpenter with the Natal Government Railways, being drafted as a member of Ward 3 of the Ladysmith Town Guard with the number 146.
In the 1926 Burgess Roll he was still shown as living there as a resident of Willis Street.
In the 1928 Roll he was listed as an Owner of Property on the Newcastle Road.
He later took up farming and married a woman named Annie Mary Judson.
Around 1932 he took up farming on a farm called “Mount Pleasant” of some 436 acres, which is still around today.
