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Auction: 3016 - Orders, Medals, Decorations & Militaria
Lot: 499

Pair: Lieutenant T Archer, King's Own Scottish Borderers, late Army Ordnance Department
British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. T. Archer.), with Next of Kin Memorial Plaque (Thomas Archer), in card case of issue, extremely fine, also an identity disc, three King's Own Scottish Borderers cap badges, and a quantity of documents and photographs:
- copy of birth certificate
- pencil sketch of Tom Archer as a young boy
- eleven page typed transcript of a letter to Tom Archer from his father William Archer, the letter dated 10 September 1901
- Commission as Temporary Lieutenant, Army Ordnance Department, 12. 1.1915
-newspaper cutting, The Daily Sketch, 3.11.1914, 'Gallant Bayonet Charge by the London Scottish'
-enclosure document for Memorial Plaque
- London Scottish Regimental Gazette, No.279- vol.XXIV, March 1919
-letter of condolence from Privy Purse Office, Buckingham Palace, dated July 3rd 1919
- War Office enclosure letter for 1914 Star, War and Victory Medals, dated 16.6.1920
- Scroll of Honour named to Lieut. Thomas Archer K.O.Scottish Borderers
- Death Certificate and letter from the German Central Information Bureau for War Losses and War Graves, dated 2.1.1922, with War Office translations
- War Office (Casualty Records) letter, dated 24.1.1922
- War Graves Commission letter, dated 20.6.1928
- photograph of Thomas Archer in uniform
- six photographs of grave site and monument, Courtrai (St Jean) Communal Cemetery

Lieutenant Thomas Archer, King's Own Scottish Borderers, is listed as killed in action 28.4.1918. From the correspondence it is clear that he died on that date in a Field Hospital at Kortryk (West Flanders), and was buried there in grave 1911. In 1928 the bodies of the British soldiers buried in the German Extension were removed and reburied in Courtrai (St Jean) Communal Cemetery.

Biographical note:
Major General Sir H.D.E. Parsons (1863-1925) was the grandson of Lieutenant General J. D. Parsons (1786-1858), the father of Lieutenant Colonel H.A.J. Parsons. His grandson was Sir Anthony Parsons G.C.M.G. (1922-1996), the distinguished British diplomat who represented Britain at the United Nations during the Falklands War
Major General H.D.E> Parsons was also the uncle of Lieutenant Tom Archer, having married Julia Archer. Tom Archer's father, William Archer, the author of the long letter to Tom written in September 1901, was the fomous author, playwright and dramatic critic who introduced Ibsen to the London stage.

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Sold for
£600