Cavalry trumpet : Private H A Colless, F Squadron, NSW Imperial Bushmen

Places
Accession Number REL42949
Collection type Heraldry
Object type Heraldry
Physical description Nickel-plated brass
Maker Henry Keat and Sons
Place made United Kingdom: England, Greater London, London
Date made c 1900
Conflict South Africa, 1899-1902 (Boer War)
Description

Nickel plated brass cavalry trumpet (bugle), with double loop tube and reinforced bell. There is a suspension ring soldered to the rear of the outside loop. The maker's details are impressed into the top of the bell, accompanied by a broad arrow symbol. The mouthpiece is a replacement from a trumpet.

History / Summary

Related to the service of Private Horace Arthur Colless, F Squadron, NSW Imperial Bushmen, born in 1882 to Henry William Colless and Elizabeth Eleanor (nee Darling) of Penrith, NSW.

The NSW Imperial Bushmen - also known as 6th Imperial Bushmen - were raised in NSW in early 1900 in six mounted rifle squadrons comprising some 760 men. Commanded by Colonel J Mackay and later Lieutenant-Colonel H Le Mesurier, they embarked for South Africa aboard the transport Armenian. Arriving in May, the Bushmen served for a year in Rhodesia and West Transvaal, before returning to Australia aboard the Orient which arrived at Albany on 17 July 1901 before proceeding to Sydney.

Private Colless used this cavalry trumpet in South Africa before giving to 10 year old Norman McLean Hunter, a second cousin to the Colless family. The Hunter family had only just returned to live on the Emu Plains, Penrith, in 1914 after 11 years in Wauchope when Horace gave this bugle on to Norman. Norman in turn allowed his children to play with it and his daughter Sarah recalls "it was often used as a toy by many of my cousins and when I was a child many of us had turns playing it. The mouthpiece in there now is from my maternal uncle Keith W Macdonald, a trombone player in the Entertainment Corps in World War 2 - it is supposed to be one from a First World War trumpet."

Horace Colless was made a Member of the British Empire as an Ordinary Member of the Civil Division in January 1963 for "services to ex-servicemen in Maroubra" (London Gazette, 1 January 1963). He died at Lane Cove in 1965.