A RARE medal won by a Oxfordshire-born soldier killed in the battle that inspired the film Zulu Dawn is set to fetch up to £28,000.

The silver South African Campaign Medal was awarded to Sub-Lieutenant Thomas Llewelyn George Griffith, from Chadlington, who was 21 when he was killed at the Battle of Isandhlwana on January 22, 1879. Griffith was among 2,300 men killed in the battle, which was the first major clash in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British and the Zulus.

The film Zulu Dawn, a prequel to the film Zulu, was released in 1979 on the 100th anniversary of the battle.

Sub-Lt Griffith, son of the Rev Thomas Griffith, was born at Chadlington on October 10, 1857, and train-ed at Sandhurst before he joined the 2nd Battalion, 24th foot.

He was the youngest of the battalion’s five officers killed at the battle. His silver medal – desc-ribed as being in a “virtually mint state” with an image of Queen Victoria – will be auctioned at Spink in Bloomsbury, London, on Thursday.

The Battle of Isand-hlwana was fought between 20,000 Zulus led by King Cetsh-wayo and 1,700 British and Colonial troops.

The Zulus were armed mainly with traditional Assegai iron spears and cow hide shields, although some had muskets and old rifles.

The British and Colonial troops were equipped with the then state-of-the-art Martini-Henry breech-loading rifles along with two seven pounder artillery pieces, as well as a rocket battery.

Despite a disadvantage in weapon technology, the numerically superior Zulus eventually overwhelmed the poorly-led and deployed British force. The battle was a decisive victory for the Zulus.

According to Spink: “On the morning of 22nd January, 1879, Griffith left Isandhlwana with the main body of the column under Lord Chelmsford, but subsequently rode back on special service with Major Smith, Captain Gardner and Lieutenant Dyer, to convey the general’s orders to advance the camp.

“Arriving at the very crisis of the tragedy which was being enacted, Lieutenant Griffith joined his company and fell in the discharge of his duty.”

The British Army retur-ned to the battlefield five months later to bury their dead.

They found the bodies of 60 officers and men lying in a group, which suggested that they had gathered together and fought desperately to the last.

Among them was thought to be Griffith.

Sub Lt Griffith lived at The Parsonage in Chadlington, the village now being home to David Cameron and his family when they are not in London, with his father, the Welsh-born curate of the village, his mother, Mary, sisters Isabella and Fanny and baby brother, Montagu.

According to the 1861 Census,the family employed two live-in servants: Nurse Mary Ann Cheeseman, 24, and Esther Allen, 17, a housemaid.