'How Lieut. Roberts (King's Royal Rifle Corps) won his Victoria Cross', 1900 (c)

Cigarette card published by Morris and Sons Limited, one of a set of twenty cigarette cards commemorating winners of the Victoria Cross during the Boer War (1899-1902), 1900 (c).

Frederick Hugh Sherston Roberts, the son of Field Marshal Frederick Roberts, was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross after an action at Colenso on 15 December 1899. Alongside several others he tried to save the guns of the 14th and 66th Batteries, Royal Field Artillery, when the detachments serving the guns had all become casualties or been driven from their guns. Some of the horses and drivers were sheltering in a donga (a dry stream or river bed) about 500 yards behind the guns and the intervening space was swept with shell and rifle fire. Roberts with two other officers and a corporal helped to hook a team into a limber and then to limber up a gun. While doing so, he fell badly wounded and two days later died of his wounds at Chieveley in Natal. His gallantry had been observed by Buller who recommended Roberts for the VC in a despatch written on 16 December, before Roberts had died from his wounds.

Cigarette cards were produced from the mid 1870s until the end of World War Two (1939-1945). Used to strengthen thin cigarette packs the cards were quickly developed into advertising devices. Series of cards covering every conceivable subject, from sportsmen to flora and fauna, were produced to encourage collectors and potential smokers alike.