Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War D.S.O., O.B.E. group of eight awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel A. S. Hewitt, Royal West Kent Regiment, late Imperial Yeomanry

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamels; The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1919; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Cape Colony, Transvaal, Wittebergen, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (4517 Pte. A. Hewitt, 33rd Coy. 11th Impl. Yeo.); 1914 Star (Capt. A. S. Hewitt, R.W. Kent R.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. Col. A. S. Hewitt); Italian Order of the Crown, Officer’s breast badge, gold and enamels; French Croix de Guerre 1914-1917, the first with somewhat recessed centre-pieces, otherwise very fine and better (8) £1000-1200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Barrett J. Carr Collection of Boer War Medals.

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Ex Dix Noonan Webb, 5 March 1996 (Lot 306), when sold without the D.S.O., O.B.E. and Italian Order of the Crown.

D.S.O. London Gazette 1 January 1917.

O.B.E. London Gazette 3 June 1919.

Alfred Scott Hewitt, who was born in Mackay, Queensland, Australia in September 1876 and educated at Warwick and Christ Church, Oxford, was a scholar and gifted sportsman, captaining college cricket, rugby and athletics teams, and afterwards playing rugby for the Harlequins, Hampshire and Kent.

Enlisting in the 33rd Company (Royal East Kent Mounted Rifles), 11th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry on the outbreak of the Boer War, he served out in South Africa for 14 months, where he was present in the actions at Biddulphsberg, Wittebergen and Caledon River (27-29 November 1900), and was commissioned into the Royal West Kent Regiment as a 2nd Lieutenant in September 1901.

A Captain & Adjutant of the 4th Battalion by the outbreak of hostilities, he appears to have gone out to France in the 2nd Battalion, The Queen’s, with whom he served from October 1914 to March 1915. Sometime thereafter taking up a Staff appointment, and advanced to Major in September 1916, Hewitt served in France and Flanders until transferring to the Italian front in November 1917, where he remained employed until the end of hostilities, latterly as Deputy Provost Marshal in the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Awarded the D.S.O. and O.B.E., he was four times mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 1 January 1916; 4 January 1917; 30 May 1918 and 5 June 1919), in addition to being awarded the French Croix de Guerre (London Gazette 18 April 1918) and the Italian Order of the Crown (London Gazette 2 March 1923).

Hewitt retired to Lisle Court, Wootton on the Isle of Wight.