Orders, Decorations and Medals

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (R. Whillock, A.B., H.M.S. Dwarf) large impressed naming, suspension re-riveted, minor edge bruising, very fine £180-220

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Boer War Medals to the Royal Navy.

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Richard Willock was born in Birmingham on 12 January 1879. A Sawyer by occupation, he entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in February 1894. He was promoted to Boy 1st Class in January 1895 and was advanced to Ordinary Seaman in January 1897 and Able Seaman in March 1898 when on the Rupert. He served on the gunboat Dwarf during April 1902-September 1904, during which time he qualified for the Q.S.A. Medal without clasp - one of 176 men of the ship so entitled. He was discharged from the Navy in March 1905 and joined the Royal Fleet Reserve. Recalled to the Royal Navy in August 1914, he was posted to the old battleship Ocean. With her he served in the bombardment of the Dardanelles forts and was present on 18 March 1915 when, in the course of attempting to aid the striken Irresistable, she struck a mine and sank. Dogged by misfortune, he was then aboard the old battleship Cornwallis when she was topedoed and sunk east of Malta by the German submarine U.32 on 9 January 1917. On 31 May 1917 when based at Vivid III Whillock was demobilized. He was then rated as an Acting Leading Seaman (D.A.M.S.) based at President III. On 20 October 1917 his earlier luck ran out and he was killed in action when serving on the steamship Algarve - the ship being sunk by a German submarine 15 miles W.S.W. of Portland Bill. The captain and 20 men on board the vessel were killed. Richard Whillock was the son of James and Mary Alice Whillock and husband of Leah Whillock of Birmingham; his name is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial. Sold with copied service paper.