Beschreibung:

Next came Ted Burnett. I shall always think of him as the best specimen of Colonial I ever came across; and this is high praise. He was a Sergeant in the Force (Bechuanaland Border Police), certainly the best natural man on a horse and the second-best rifle shot I ever knew ... If I had to go into a tight corner and were restricted to one companion, I should have shouted for Ted Burnett ... ’ Fellow pioneer Frank Johnson’s Great Days, refers. The rare and emotive British South Africa Company Medal awarded to Captain A. “Ted” Burnett, a gold prospector, scout, crack shot and Chief Transport Officer and Intelligence Officer of Rhodes’s Pioneer Column, in which latter capacity he rode ahead to select the site for Fort Salisbury: a close friend of such figureheads as Frank Johnson and Frederick Selous, and well-known to Dr. Jameson and Cecil Rhodes, he was killed in action while scouting near the Shangani River in October 1893 British South Africa Company Medal 1890-97, reverse Matabeleland 1893, no clasp (Mr. A. E. Burnett, Scout), extremely fine £2600-2800 Footnote Albert Edward Burnett was born in East London, Cape Colony, in January 1863 and as a young man moved to Kimberley where he engaged in diamond mining. In 1885, aged 22 years, he was serving in Colonel Gough's regiment, the 3rd Mounted Rifles, and participated in Sir Charles Warren's Expedition to Bechuanaland, which successfully prevented the Transvaal Boers from linking up with the Germans in what is now Namibia. Later in the same year, he joined the Bechuanaland Border Police, where he was a made a Sergeant. A fellow member of the Bechuanaland Field Force and subsequently the Border Police was Frank Johnson. Johnson was three years younger than Burnett, and had arrived in Cape Town at the tender age of 16, fresh from England and with just £5 to his name. He was handsome, aggressive and self-confident, and the two men were destined to become business partners. As Regimental Quarter-Master Sergeant, Johnson was known by everyone in the Border Police and many people ‘passing through’. One day he was shown vulture quills full of gold dust, which had been collected from the Mazoe River in Mashonaland. Johnson resigned from the police and formed the Northern Gold Fields Syndicate. Joins Frank Johnson’s Northern Gold Fields Syndicate Burnett resigned from the police in March 1887 and joined Frank Johnson's expedition to obtain gold mining concessions, on the promise of a fifth share in any profits. He set off into Mashona and Zambesi tribal lands, reaching the Mazoe River in August 1887, where the famous explorer and hunter Frederick Courtenay Selous had reported finding gold. Burnett was able to confirm this - ancient gold diggings and shafts were abundant. He and Johnson panned for river gold, finding some flakes and dust every time. Frank Johnson (who, typically, had a double - 40% - shareholding in the expedition) wrote in his famous work Great Days: ‘Ted Burnett. I shall always think of him as the best specimen of Colonial I ever came across and this is high praise. He was a Sergeant in the Bechuanaland Border Police, certainly the best natural man on a horse and the second-best rifle shot I ever knew ... If I had to go into a tight corner and were restricted to one companion, I should have shouted for Ted Burnett ... Heany and Burnett, who were heavy smokers, ran out of tobacco. From being cheerful companions they became more and more morose, until relations in our party really became strained and unpleasant. Burnett went back to Zeerust in the Transvaal, some hundreds of miles, to buy twenty-five pounds of tobacco, and on his return they at once resumed their former happy outlook.’ In 1889 Burnett joined another expedition to obtain land concessions for gold mines, this time as Lieutenant to Frederick Courtenay Selous. They explored the eastern Mashona lands and part of Tete in Portuguese Mozambique. Chief Transport and Intelligence Officer - the Pathfinder of the P