GALLANTRY MEDALS, ORDERS & DECORATIONS
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William John Riley
Government Communications Headquarters
1977 Silver Jubilee Medal Unnamed
Copy research. William John Riley worked as a Telecommunications Technical Officer at General Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham. He is hown on the Silver Jubilee Medal Roll as "Ministry of Defence". He was awarded the Imperial Service Medal in the London Gazette 7 August 1978 and confirmed as working for GCHQ. Only one Silver Jubilee Medal was awarded to each Division of GCHQ.
ISM in box of issue. Silver Jubilee Medal was pesented in a wooden box with a brass plate engraved: "THE QUEENS SILVER JUBILEE MEDAL PRESENTED TO MR W J RILEY 17TH JUNE 1977".
Confirmed GCHQ medals not often seen on the market.
Pair: £295 RESERVED
Sidney Francis Farley
Royal Air Force & Ministry of Defence
1939-45 Star Unnamed
Defence Medal Unnamed
1939-45 War Medal Unnamed
Imperial Service Medal (QEII) SIDNEY FRANCIS FARLEY, B.E.M.
Copy research and photo. Sidney Francis Farley was born in London in September 1918 and served in the RAF during the war. He then worked as a Radio Technician for the Ministry of Defence. Stated to have worked for GCHQ during his career. His BEM was Gazetted 1 January 1974 as Radio Technician, Ministry of Defence. His Imperial Service Medal was Gazetted 15 December 1978 as Telecomms Technical Officer, Ministry of Defence. It has BEM after his name on the ISM. He died in London in 1997.
Group of Five: £450
Private William Green
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers / Machine Gun Corps
Army Ordnance Corps
British War Medal 26065 PTE. W. GREEN. R.INNIS.FUS.
Victory Medal 26065 PTE. W. GREEN. R.INNIS.FUS.
Copy research and original documents and photo. William Green was born 6 October 1895 in Gateshead, Co. Durham. Enlisted in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers 13 September 1915. Transferred to 6 Company, Machine Gun Corps and was awarded the Military Medal in the London Gazette 21 October 1916. He later transferred to the Army Ordnance Corps and was posted to No.5 Ordnance Mobile Workshop. To Army Reserve 4 April 1919.
Group of Three: £850
Private John M. McLoughlin
1/10th Liverpool Scottish
Copy research. MIC shows entitlement to British War and Victory Medals. MM Gazetted 7 October 1918 and shows that he was from Liverpool. The 1/10th Battalion were known as the "Liverpool Scottish". Copy MM Card, MIC and Gazette entry.
Private Farquhar Shaw
1st Gordon Highlanders
Copy research. MIC shows entitlement to British War and Victory Medals and previous service with the Cameron Highlanders. MM Gazetted 19 June 1919 and shows that he was from Glasgow. Copy MM Card, MIC and Gazette entry.
Arthur Baker
Page of the Presence, Buckingham Palace
ex-Royal Navy
Foreign awards presented to Arthur Baker
during his 40-plus years service
at Buckingham Palace
Atlantic Star Unnamed
Defence Medal Unnamed
1939-45 War Medal Unnamed
Royal Victorian Medal (QEII) Unnamed
1937 George VI Coronation Medal Unnamed
1953 Qeen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal Unnamed
1977 Jubilee Medal Unnamed
Royal Household Faithful Service Medal Thirty Years / Forty Years ARTHUR BAKER
Boxed foreign awards:
Swedish Royal Household Medal - King Gustaf Adolf & Queen Louise of Sweden, June-July 1954
Bronze Italian Medal "Roma Londra 12-16 Maggio 1958" - President Gronchi of Italy, May 1958
Medal of Order of Homayoun - The Shah of Iran, May 1959
French Medal - President & Madame de Gaulle of France, April 1960
Medal of the Order of Crown of Thailand - King Bhumibol & Queen Sirikit of Thailand, July 1960
Medal of the Order of George I - King Paul I & Queen Frederika of Greece, July 1963
Medal of the Order of Bernardo O'Higgins - President de Frei of Chile, July 1965
Silver Italian Medal - President Saragat of Italy, April 1969
Medal of the Order of Rio Branco - President Geisel of Brazil, May 1976 (ARTHUR BAKER on box)
Copy research, including a letter from the Royal Archives, Windsor detailing his career. Arthur Baker was born 6 August 1915 at Mansel Lacy, Herefordshire. He was employed as a Boy by Colonel Prescott of Bockleton Court before being employed as a Footman for the Lee family at How Caple Court, Hereford. On 10 April 1937 he got a job as an Assistant in the Steward's Room at Buckingham Palace.
12 December 1940 he joined the Royal Navy as Ordinary Seaman Cook. 18 May 1942 he was promoted to Leading Steward. Released from the Navy in 1946 he returned to service at the Palace on 23 April. He was promoted to Under Butler in the Silver Pantry. On 19 May 1947 he was appointed Usher in the Steward's Room and Servant's Hall. 1 January 1970 promoted to Page of the Presence. He died 28 December 1978 at 5 Burford House, Royal Mews, Windsor Castle.
1953 Coronation Medal roll - Arthur Baker - Usher, Steward's Room and Servants Hall, Buckingham Palace.
Royal Victorian Medal roll - Arthur Baker, Steward's Room Usher, Buckingham Palace. 1 January 1968. The Times reported: "Mr. R. Aubrey, Mr. A. Baker and Mr. A. Clouting had the honour of being received by The Queen when Her Majesty decorated them with the Royal Victorian Medal (silver)."
1977 Jubilee Medal roll - Mr. Arthur Baker - Page of the Presence.
The Page of the Presence is a servant of the Royal Household who attends important visitors to the Palace. Among their other duties they serve meals to the Royal Family and man the Privy Purse door for members of the British Government and to receive the daily red boxes.
Group of Eighteen: £2250
Note: His miniature group is listed seperately under miniature medals.
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Constable Henry Francis Seabright
Henry Francis Seabright was born 28 January 1882 in Torquay. He was awarded the R.H.S. Bronze Medal in 1909: Case No. 37162. “On the 17th October 1909, Thomas Hughes, in an attempt at suicide, threw himself into the canal at Hanley. Seabridge went in, and after a hard struggle with the man, who resisted violently, got him out.” In the 1911 census PC Henry F. Seabright is living in Commercial Road, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent with his wife, May and twin sons. He died in Stoke-on-Trent in 1971.
The medal has been re-pinned and the naming is rubbed.
Matron Elizabeth Mabel Bickerdike
Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service
"Under Sealed Orders"
Queens South Africa Medal NURSING SISTER E.M. BICKERDIKE.
1914-15 Star SISTER E.M. BICKERDIKE, Q.A.I.M.N.S.
British War Medal SISTER E.M. BICKERDIKE.
Victory Medal SISTER E.M. BICKERDIKE.
Copy service papers, rolls and research. Elizabeth Mabel Bickerdike was born in Bombay, India in 1873, daughter of Robert Bickerdike (an East India Merchant) and his wife, Mary. In 1891 the family was living in Croydon, Surrey and she was educated at the Girls High School, Croydon. She was trained at The Infirmary, Blackburn 1896-99 and then worked at the Borough Fever Hospital, Croydon. She joined Princess Christians Army Nursing Service Reserve and was called-up for service in South Africa. She was a Sister at No. 5 General Hospital, Wynberg July 1901, at No. 2 General Hospital, Pretoria August 1901, No. 8 General Hospital, Bloemfontein August 1901 and No. 19 General Hospital, Pretoria November 1901.
She then joined Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and in February 1903 was in the list of the first 12 nurses to be posted as "Staff Nurses" in the M.N.S. (to the Herbert Hospital, Woolwich). February 1904 she was then posted to the troopship "Plassy" for "Indian troopship duty" but returned to Woolwich in April 1904. Then to Alton and in January 1906 to Military Hospital, Portsmouth. She resigned in July 1906 and became a private nurse with the Registered Nurses Society. In July 1910 she was appointed Sister at Mount Vernon Hospital for Consumption, Hampstead. Rejoined in March 1915. MIC shows qualification for Star "HMS Delta 26.3.15." Hospital Ship Delta arrived off Gallipoli 2 days after the landings. A Nursing Sister on the Delta wrote "by 10pm we had taken in 400 horribly wounded men straight from the field. Some were shot further in the boats which took them to us. The gangway ran red with blood..." We have now obtained from the Imperial War Museum, a copy of "Under Sealed Orders" by Miss E.M. Bickerdike, "In Hospital Ship DELTA, April 14, 1915 to December 19, 1915 sailing between Southampton, Alexandria and the Dardanelles." (9 pages).
"We had beds for five hundred patients on board, and set to work to make them, to getting all our ward equipment in order..... There were at this time twelve Sisters, including the Matron, but this number had to be increased after the first voyage. Nobody realised then what a terribly arduous undertaking the Dardanelles was going to be. ..... Never will I forget waking up next morning. We were approaching the battle zone. Guns were roaring, shells screaming, everything in my cabin was rattling.... On deck the spectacle was truly appalling... The lighters and barges with the wounded came alongside....We soon fitted up our five hundred beds, with the most desperately wounded men and sailed for Alexandria, another hospital ship taking our place.... Early next morning we arrived off Gaba Tepe. It as a terrible day of bombardment - machine guns and rifle shots all day and night. Patients constantly coming and with very bad wounds. Some of the wounds were so bad, and the haemorrhage so severe that it was almost impossible to tell wihch was flash and which clothes... The situation was so serious that the Captain of the ship and our C.O. took on board, not five hundered, but nine hundred patients! .... The work done during the Dardanelles operations was terribly strenuous, the wounded cam practically straight from the firing line, thesick were very ill indeed, enteric fever, dysentery, jaundice, and in the cold weather, dreadful frost bite."
But there were lighter moments: "dresses were long but deck chairs are never conducive to keeping them down, somehow they always wriggle up.... On these occasions, it was nothing for a ship's officer to come and say, in an undertone, "Sister, T.M.L.", which being interpreted meant "Too much leg!". T.M.L. became quite a joke on board."
On the 19th October the Delta sailed in Imbros harbour for the last time: "The harbour was packed with ships of all sorts and sizes. It was not until after tea that our C.O. broke the news to us that the Peninsula was being evacuated. He could scarcely speak of it, as for us, we were absolutely overwhelmed.... there before our eyes, in the gathering dusk, this enormous array of ships began filing out of harbour. They were to take away the troops... We reached Suvla late in the afternoon of the 19th, Sunday.... Before daylight we sailed away leaving bonfires of stores, illuminating the blackness of the night at Suval Bay. At our arrival at Cape Helles nobody spoke. We leaned over the rails of the deck, with lumps in our throats and tears in our eyes, as we thought of it all - it was all very tragic and sad. Nobody left and all those lonely graves ..."
She next served at Citadel Military Hospital, Cairo. Promoted Assistant Matron 12 February 1917. She was invalided back to the UK with suspected TB in May 1918; though later found not to be infected. Her illness was put down to the "strain of nursing work". Posted to Officer's Hospital, Eaton Hall, Chester 24 September 1918. Royal Red Cross 2nd Class Gazetted 3 June 1918 "in recognition of their valuable services with the British Forces in Egypt - Miss Elizabeth Mabel Bickerdike, Asst. Matron, Q.A.I.M.N.S. (Ret.)" She was posted to King George V Hospital Dublin in February 1919. The R.R.C. roll states "Decorated by the King at Buckingham Palace 10.4.19." In 1928 she applied for assistance from the Nursing and VAD Services Committee of the United Services Fund. The Matron-in-Chief, QAIMNS wrote; "Miss E.M. Bickerdike served with the Army Nursing Reserve as a Nursing Sister at Home and Abroad from 13th October 1899 to 17th December 1902, with the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service as Staff Nurse at Home and Abroad from 12th February 1902 to 22nd June 1906, and also with the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve as Sister and Asst Matron at Home and Abroad from 26th March 1915 to 28th March 1919, during which her conduct was satisfactory." She died 25 March 1966 at Wallington, Surrey, aged 93.
Group of Five: £1750
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Major John Neville Evans
Royal Signals
Africa Star Unnamed
Italy Star Unnamed
Defence Medal Unnamed
1939-45 War Medal Unnamed
Efficiency Decoration Territorial Privately Engraved
Medals mounted, along with miniatures, badges, ribbons etc (see picture).
Major John Neville Evans. Copy research. Born 23 Jan. 1916.
2nd Lieut. (Royal Signals, TA) 2 Sept. 1939. Acting Captain July 1940. Temp Capt. October 1940. Acting Major Sept. 1942. Temp Major Dec. 1942.
Acting Lieut-Colonel July 1946 - Sept. 1946. Major 23 Jan. 1952. GSO2 in Department of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff 18 April 1957. Retired 1960. Landlord of the Harbour Master public house, Aberaeron, Wales.
Died 22 April 1993.
Group of Six: £265
Alfred Robert Batchelor
ALFRED ROBERT BATCHELOR £20
Copy London Gazette shows awarded 8 April 1931 as Assistant Head Postman, London Postal Service. The 1911 census shows him living at 66 Woodside Green, South Norwood, Croydon, aged 41.
His sons medals (Alfred Batchelor, The Queen's Regiment) are also listed.
M. Wyer
(hallmarked silver, London 1950).
Lodge 855 - Lodge of Sympathy, Wootton-Under-Edge, Gloucestershire.
Possibly Mark Wyer, who died in 1953 in Gloucestershire.