Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War auxiliary patrol operations D.S.C. group of four awarded to Chief Skipper H. W. Bristow, Royal Naval Reserve

Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., Hallmarks for London 1918, the reverse privately inscribed, ‘Presented by His Most Gracious Majesty King George V, Oct. 24th 1918, at Buckingham Palace, to Chief Skipper Walter Horace Bristow, R.N.R.’; 1914-15 Star (WSA. 86 Skr., R.N.R.); British War and Victory Medals (W.S.A. 86 Ch. Skr., R.N.R.), together with his Granton Naval Base Medal for Zeal, silver, hallmarks for Birmingham 1917, the reverse inscribed, ‘Chief Skipper Horace W. Bristow, R.N.R., C. of E., 21.1.18, Granton Naval Base’, integral loop and ring-bar suspension, contact marks, generally very fine (5) £1200-1500

D.S.C. London Gazette 20 September 1918:

‘For services in the Auxiliary Patrol, Minesweeping and Coastal Motor Boats, between 1 January and 30 June 1918.’

Horace Walter Bristow was born in Ramsgate, Kent in December 1868 and obtained his Certificate of Competency as a Skipper in August 1898. Enrolling in the Royal Naval Reserve in August 1913, he served briefly in the trawler Cameo in 1914 prior to transferring to another trawler, the Sicyon, that September. He remained similarly employed until the summer of 1917, when he joined the Granton Naval Base Gunner as a newly appointed Chief Skipper, and was given command of the armed trawler Scarron. Bristow’s final appointment was in the Pekin, from which he was demobilised in December 1919.