Description
Queen’s South Africa, no bar, 186 Private Archibald Norman Titterton Passmore, Vryburg Town Guard.
Officially impressed: “186 Pte A. Passmore. Vryburg T.G.”
1 of only about 212 medals issued to this unit, not often encountered, possibly as the medal roll features many names to this unit that had served in other regiments.
Confirmed on the medal roll.
Archibald appears to have been in London at the time of the medals issue.
A note with the roll has the following “Address, 44 Waterloo Bridge Road, London, S.L., Handed to Passmore by D.D.O.S. Woolwich 15.7.10.”
Archibald along with most of his unit, were initially put forward by their CO, Capt Philip Townshend, for the Cape Colony clasp, however when it came time to issue the medals all of the entries were instead cross through and a note at the top of the page reads, “Authorisation for erasure of clasps”.
Theres is only one South African we can see called Archibald Passmore, whose full name was Archibald Norman Titterton Passmore, born on 29th April 1880 in Grahamstown, Cape Province.
He was one of a significant number of children, his family totalling 10 other siblings, having 6 brothers and 4 sisters.
The son of John Frederick Passmore and Margaret Elizabeth nee Gaskell.
The Passmores were long time settlers in South Africa, his Grandfather John Francis Passmore (1823-1902) having come from Devon to the Cape Colony as a boy, brought by his father before him, Sergt Thomas Eddy Passmore (1788-1841) as a so called original “1820 Settler”.
Thomas Eddy Passmore, the original South African, was a Military man with the Ordnance Office and Sergeant of the Royal Sappers and Miners, from 1812-1836, who came to South Africa for work and settled there.
He later died in Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa on 29th May 1926.
In civilian life he was a Clerk for South African Railways.
