Four: Private C. P. Morton, 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards, later Machine Gun Corps

1914 Star, with clasp (7239 Pte. C. F. [sic] Morton. 4/D. Gds); British War and Victory Medals (D-7239 Pte. C. P. Morton 4-D Gds.); Defence Medal, mounted as worn, the Great War awards heavily polished, therefore fine, the last good very fine (4) £160-£200

Claude Percival Morton was born in Croydon, Surrey in 1894. A pre-war regular soldier, he attested for the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards at Brighton on 2 September 1912 and served with them during the Great War in France from 16 August 1914. On 22 August, a squadron of the unit became the first members of the B.E.F. to engage Germans in action just outside of Mons.
He transferred to the Machine Gun Corps on 22 April 1916 and subsequently also served in the Labour Corps before returning to the Corps of Dragoons. He was discharged at Canterbury on 1 September 1924 and died at Brighton, Sussex in 1969.

Sold with the recipient’s Soldiers Small Book; Hove British Legion & Ex-Service Men’s Club, Limited share certificate, dated 1924, registered to the recipient; recipient’s Soldier’s Demobilisation Account certificate; 4th Dragoon Guards Christmas Card, the inside inscribed in pencil ‘To my Darling Wife from her loving Husband Bert’; four photographs of the recipient in uniform, comprising two seated studio portraits, one of the recipient mounted in profile and one seated outdoors.