Cape of Good Hope General Service Medal, with bar for Basutoland, awarded to Cpl. T. Tidmarsh, 1900

Obverse, a bust of Queen Victoria

Reverse, coat of arms of the Cape Colony

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Cape of Good Hope General Service Medal, 1900

The British colony on the Cape of Good Hope, now part of South Africa, was run by an independent administration with its own armed forces. Various risings by the African peoples of their territory resulted in a number of military actions which were thought to merit a medal for these troops, of which this was the second. The first had been the South Africa Medal for the campaign that brought the Basotho tribes under the governance of the Cape Colony.
The bar for Basutoland (now in Lesotho) was awarded to participants in a campaign from 1880 to 1881 against Chief Lerothodi, who had inherited the mantle of Basotho resistance to the encroachment of British rule from Moirosi, defeated in 1879.
This medal was awarded to Corporal T. Tidmarsh of the Kimberley Light Horse. Lester Watson bought it from the London dealers Spink on 12 November 1924.