Watch List notes:

*The interesting Spion Kop Q.S.A. with 5 clasps awarded to Captain Nicholas Lynch, 1st Battalion South Lancashire Regiment, who commanded the party ordered under fire at Spion Kop to cover the removal of the mortally wounded General Woodgate to a nearby dressing station, comprising: Queen's South Africa, 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Tugela Heights, Orange Free State, Relief of Ladysmith, Transvaal, Laing's Nek (Capt: N. M. Lynch, S. Lanc: Rgt:) officially engraved naming, with old collector's ticket, nearly extremely fine. Ex D.N.W. 27 September1994, lot 203; ex Harry Usher Collection. Captain Nicholas Marcus Julius Lynch was born in April 1868; a scion of an old family based at Barna House in Galway, Ireland. He was educated at Clongowes College and joined the South Lancashire Regiment in September 1887, but was employed with the Gold Coast Constabulary between March 1892 and December 1893, and subsequently with the West African Frontier Force between March 1898 and November 1899, patrolling in the Muri mountains (for which he was also entitled to the East and West Africa medal with clasp 1897-98). He returned to the South Lancashire Regiment and proceeded to South Africa in November 1899, and was present with the 2 Companies of the South Lancashire Regiment which were present at Spion Kop on 24 January 1900. There, he commanded the party organised on the Kop to cover the removal to the dressing station of the mortally wounded General Woodgate, Commander of the 11th Brigade. (Ref Sir Charles Warren's despatch dated 1 February 1900). Captain Lynch later died of Enteric Fever at N0.4 Hospital on the Mooi River, on 13 November 1900. Interestingly, online research suggests that his batman, an African boy called Osman Tisani returned to live thereafter with the Lynches in Galway in 1903, now aged 14 – causing much local interest and astonishment at the time. Sometimes reputed as having been the son of a South African Chief, it seems more likely that he was in fact rescued from slavers in Mali, as he records his birthplace as 'Tim buk too' in the 1911 Census, with his role as 'Domestic Servant / Valet'. He later became the first person of African origin to learn the Irish language of the Galway Gaeltacht. (£800-1000)