Six: Petty Officer T. Newton, Royal Navy, who later served with the Royal Australian Navy aboard H.M.A.S. Sydney in the action against S.M.S. Emden

China 1900, 1 clasp, Taku Forts (T. Newton, P.O. 1Cl., H.M.S. Algerine); 1914-15 Star (O.N.8064 T. Newton. P.O.); British War and Victory Medals (O.N.8064 T. Newton P.O.) Victory medal officially re-impressed; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (8064 Thomas Newton, P.O.) officially engraved Australian issue, mounted as worn; together with H.M.A.S. Sydney - S.M.S. Emden Medal, 9 November 1914, silver Mexican Dollar dated ‘1882’, mounted by W. Kerr, Sydney, edge bruise to the first, contact marks overall, otherwise generally very fine, the last nearly very fine
£1200-1500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A fine collection of awards for the Boxer Rebellion 1900.

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Collection

94 medals with the single Taku Forts clasp to this ship.

Thomas Newton was born in Southampton on 20 November 1870, and entered the Royal Navy on 26 October 1886 as a Boy 2nd Class aboard H.M.S. Impregnable. He was advanced to Boy 1st Class aboard Ganges in November 1887; Ordinary Seaman on the Neptune in November 1888, and Able Seaman on the Plover in July 1890. Briefly promoted to Leading Seaman in July 1895 when in Lapwing, he was demoted the following month to Able Seaman and given 28 days hard labour for some misdemeanour. He regained his rank when in Collingwood in November 1898 and was advanced to Petty Officer 2nd Class when in Vivid I in February 1900. Newton served in the sloop Algerine from February 1900 to May 1903, during which time he was promoted to Petty Officer 1st Class and gained the China Medal with clasp for Taku Forts. His final posting was as Petty Officer 1st Class in the Leander, being pensioned ashore on 31 January 1911. Newton joined the Royal Fleet Reserve at Devonport in February 1911.

Newton returned to service on a 5 year agreement with the Royal Australian Navy in April 1913 and served as Petty Officer aboard H.M.A.S. Penguin, from May 1913 to July 1914; and in H.M.A.S. Sydney throughout the Great War, from July 1914 to September 1919.

Newton was serving aboard the 2nd Class Cruiser H.M.A.S. Sydney on 9 November 1914, when the ship encountered the German Light Cruiser S.M.S. Emden off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. In a short but spectacular career in the Indian Ocean the Emden (Captain Karl von Müller) had bombarded Madras and captured or sunk some 23 allied vessels including a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. In action with the Sydney, the slower and outgunned Emden was eventually beached in a wrecked condition on North Keeling Island. Newton completed his service in H.M.A.S. Brisbane from September 1919 to January 1920, and was demobilised on 5 July 1920. His L.S. & G.C. medal was awarded in March 1915. Sold with copied record of service and Naval Historical Society of Australia publication H.M.A.S. Sydney 1913-1929, Daw & Lind, 1973, 108pp.