A Great War D.S.O. group of seven awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel E. A. Ash, Middlesex Regiment, Connaught Rangers, and Malay State Volunteer Regiment, who served with the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa during the Boer War, and was decorated for his services on the Western Front during the Great War as Commanding Officer of the 2nd/6th Battalion Durham Light Infantry

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, with integral top riband bar; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902, naming erased; British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Lt. Col. E. A. Ash); Colonial Auxiliary Forces Officers’ Decoration, G.V.R., silver and silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1919, the reverse engraved ‘Lt. Col. Arthur Ernest Ash, D.S.O., Private, M.S.V.R.’, with integral top riband bar; Colonial Auxiliary Forces Long Service, G.V.R. (Private Ernest Arthur Ash, D.S.O., Malay States Vol. Regiment); Jubilee 1935, mounted for wear in this order, minor green enamel damage to wreath on DSO, otherwise generally good very fine (7) £1800-2200

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, September 2009.

D.S.O. London Gazette 3 June 1919:
‘For distinguished service in connection with Military Operations in France and Flanders.’

Ernest Arthur Ash was born in Chester on 15 July 1882 and was educated at Bedford Grammar School. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment on 7 February 1900, and was promoted Lieutenant on 6 June 1900. Gaining his Riding Certificate on 8 January 1901, he was seconded to the Imperial Yeomanry for service during the Boer War, and served in South Africa with the 88th (Welsh Yeomanry) Company, 9th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry from 30 March 1901 to 28 September 1902. Returning to England, he was absorbed back into the 5th (Militia) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment (as his old Battalion had been re-numbered), and was promoted Captain on 27 February 1904. He resigned his commission on 19 August 1905 and embarked upon a career as a rubber planter in Malaya, enlisting in the Malay States Volunteer Regiment.

Following the outbreak of the Great War he applied for an appointment to the Special Reserve of Officers, and and was appointed to his former unit (now a Reserve Battalion) on 2 April 1915 with the rank of Captain. Attached to the 5th Battalion, Connaught Rangers from January 1916, he served with them in the Salonika theatre of War, before returning to the 5th Middlesex in July 1916, which by then was part of the Thames and Medway Garrison based in Chatham. He served on the Western Front for the last year of the Great War, as Second in Command (with the rank of Acting Major) of a Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers between 20 January 1918 and 17 February; and of a Battalion of the Manchester Regiment between 12 March 1918 and 31 July 1918. Promoted Major on 2 August 1918, he commanded the 2nd/6th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, with the rank of Acting Lieutenant-Colonel, between 14 August 1918 and 22 May 1919, and for his services during the last few months of hostilities in command of the Battalion was Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 9 July 1919) and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

Ash relinquished his commission on 1 April 1920, and was granted the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Returning to Malaya to resume his career as a rubber planter, he continued to serve in the Malay States Volunteer Regiment, and was awarded the Colonial Auxiliary Forces Long Service Medal (Federated Malay States Government Gazette 16 June 1922), and the Colonial Auxiliary Forces Officers’ Decoration (Federated Malay States Government Gazette 26 January 1923), the latter being one of only eleven such awards made by the Federated Malay States. In November 1933 he was appointed by the High Commissioner as an Unofficial Member of the Federal Council of the Federated Malay States for a term of three years, and it was in this capacity that he was awarded the 1935 Silver Jubilee Medal. He retired from planting in February 1940, and was unsuccessful in applying for a temporary commission during the Second World War. Emigrating to Nairobi, Kenya, he died at the Civil Hospital, Port Sudan, on 12 February 1948.

Sold with five original Great War period photographs and a large quantity of copied research.