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Auction: 19002 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 706

(x) Kitchener's Horse

Queen's South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill (Lieut: H. T. Ommany, Kitchener's Horse.), note surname spelling, extremely fine

Henry Travers Ommanney was born on 25 December 1849, the son of Major-General Edward Lacon Ommanney, Royal Engineers, who was appointed to the charge of Bahadur Shah II and his family following the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny.

Educated at Cheltenham College, Henry joined the Indian Civil Service in 1868 as Acting Under-Secretary in the Revenue Department and saw service at Dharwar, Canara, Nassick, Khandeish and Bombay. Appointed Acting Inspector-General of Police in 1888, a member of the Hemp Drug Commission in 1893 and a Magistrate in 1895, he retired the following year. During his final period in India he published two notes in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, one on a variety of Butea frondosa - a leguminous plant - the other on 'A friendly bulbul'.

Ommanney obtained a Lieutenant's commission and served during the Boer War as a Troop and Squadron Leader with Kitchener's Horse. For some time he was stationed in the Johannesburg area where he collected plants. Most of his specimens were presented to the British Museum in 1902, and subsequently listed by Spencer le M. Moore in the Journal of Botany that same year. In the same publication, fellow naturalist A. B. Rendle first described the large perennial tuber known locally as 'beespatat' and named it Ipomoea ommanneyi in honour of the collector. Ommanney died on 30 May 1936; sold with a copied photograph of recipient.


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Sold for
£320