Orders, Decorations and Medals

Family group:

Four: Engine Room Artificer 1st Class G. H. Ryder, Royal Navy

1914-15 Star (156576 E.R.A. 1, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (156576 E.R.A. 1, R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.VII.R. (156576 E.R.A. 1 Cl., H.M.S. Indus), generally good very fine

Six: Warrant Shipwright R. G. Ryder, Royal Navy

British War Medal 1914-20 (M. 35684 B. Shpt., R.N.); 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Defence and War Medals; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., coinage bust (M. 35684 Shpt. 2, H.M.S. Drake), mounted as worn, generally good very fine (10) £300-350

George Henry Ryder was born in Cornwall in September 1867 and entered the Royal Navy as an Acting Engine Room Artificer in July 1890. Advanced to E.R.A. 1 in September 1902, he was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in May 1906 and was pensioned ashore July 1912. Recalled on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he joined the battleship H.M.S. Albion, and was present in her throughout the famous landings at V Beach, Cape Helles, that April, when she lent support to the River Clyde throughout the day, and thereafter to those troops who made it ashore - among other achievements, her guns knocked out an enemy machine-gun post in Fort Sedd-el-Bahr. A day or two later, and again in early May, she was compelled to make for Mudros after being damaged by enemy shellfire - on the latter occasion, having run aground on a sandbank off Gaba Tepe, she was hit by Turkish artillery over a hundred times, but, luckily, due to the calibre of the shells, suffered fewer than a dozen casualties. Ryder was demobilised on his return to the U.K. in June 1916.

Ronald George Ryder was born in Plymouth in March 1903 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy Shipwright in August 1918, thereby qualifying for his single British War Medal 1914-20. Having then been awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in June 1936, he was appointed a Warrant Shipwright at the Scapa Flow minesweeping and anti-submarine base Dunluce Castle in October 1941. Removing to the Combined Operations base Salsette in Bombay for landing craft (L.C.) duties in July 1943, he remained similarly employed until the end of the War, by which stage the base had been retitled Braganza.