Orders, Decorations and Medals

A most unusual group of six awarded to Captain H. V. Dorey, Rhodesian Forces, late Tientsin Volunteer Fire Brigade and Army Service Corps

British War and Victory Medals (Capt. H. V. Dorey); War Medal 1939-45; Tientsin Volunteer Fire Brigade Long Service, silver, with gold engraved centre and gold-faced fire axes between arms, by Vaughton, hallmarks for Birmingham 1907, the reverse engraved, ‘Tientsin, 1909 to 1914, Presented by the British Municipal Councils for Long Service to H. V. Dorey’, complete with ‘T.V.F.B.’ riband buckle for wearing, in a fitted Merry Weather & Sons Ltd., London case of issue, with gilt ‘T.V.F.B.’ title to lid; China, Medal for Military Academy Excellence, silver-gilt and enamel, obverse, portrait of Marshal Wu Pei-Fu, reverse, enamelled Chinese flags and characters, complete with original riband and hook-fastener for wearing, in a Spencer & Co., London case; China, a silver-gilt and enamel star-shaped award, the enamelled obverse with Chinese characters and flowers, the plain reverse officially numbered ‘1101’, complete with integral loop, chain and hook device for wearing, in a Spencer & Co., London case, upper reverse centre on the fifth with chipped enamel, otherwise good very fine or better (6) £800-1000

Harry Vaughan Dorey, who was born in London in July 1892, was otherwise employed at a General Storekeepers and Gentlemens Outfitters in Victoria Road, Tientsin, during the period of his service in the local Volunteer Fire Brigade. Returning to the U.K. from Taku, China at his own expense in early 1916, he enlisted in the Army Service Corps that April, and was commissioned shortly thereafter. Ordered to France in July 1916, he was attached to 129th Siege Battery, R.G.A., until invalided home in the following year as a result of ‘an explosion of an ammunition dump through enemy action at Roclincourt on approximately 24 May 1917 ... I was in the New Zealand Hospital at Hazebrouke from 11 June until evacuated to England on 19 July to the 5th Southern General Hospital.’

Demobilised as a Captain, Dorey arrived in Rhodesia ‘from China with his sister (Mrs. Thompson) and four children’ in June 1926, and settled there as a farmer at Bromley. Recalled in the 1939-45 War, he was appointed a Lieutenant and Platoon C.O. at Bromley in August 1940, Quarter-Master of the 1st Battalion, Rhodesian Regiment in January 1942, and placed on the War Emergency Reserve of Officers in August 1942; sold with a quantity of related research.