Four: Captain G. A. Hoghton, Armoured Cars, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and Kite Balloon Section, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force

1914-15 Star (Lieut. G. A. Houghton [sic]. R.N.V.R.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. G. A. Hoghton. R.N.V.R.); France, Third Republic, Croix de Guerre, bronze, reverse dated 1914-1918, mounted as worn and housed in a glazed oak frame, good very fine (4) £300-400

George Alexander Hoghton, was born in 1876, in Kensington, London, the son of George William Alphonse and Marie Zoe Joachime Hoghton, of The Cottage, Sandown, Isle of Wight and Bromley House, Bromley, Kent. He joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and served as temporary Lieutenant on ‘President III’ additional for duties with the Royal Naval Air Services in January 1915 and with Kite Balloons at Roehampton from September 1915. He had applied to the War Office in February 1915 asking ‘if desirous of his services’ in the Army, which in January 1916 resulted in his temporary R.N.V.R. commission being terminated and being commissioned as Captain, Gordon Highlanders. However, Hoghton joined R.N.A.S. Armoured Cars in February 1916, and his army commission was cancelled his original R.N.V.R. commission reinstated. He served until 20 August 1916 when his commission was terminated. He then served with Royal Flying Corps as Kite Balloon Instructor from October 1916 and served with No 1 Training Group from 18 November 1917, passing his Aero Club Pilot’s licence on 23 November 1917. He served with Kite Balloon Section, S.E. Area, No. 8 Group Pool, and was commissioned Lieutenant (Honorary Captain) in the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918. He transferred to the Unemployed List in May 1919.

In 1924, Hoghton appears to have run into some financial difficulties and he was declared bankrupt and described as ‘late of the Sports Club, St. James Square, S.W., in the county of London, now 1, Avenue du Casino, Beausoliel, Monte Carlo, in the Republic of France, a domiciled Englishman’. He died in Menton on the French Riviera in the early 1930s.

French Croix de Guerre unconfirmed.

Sold together with some research including two copy photographs.