Orders, Decorations and Medals

A good Great War M.C. group of four awarded to Major M. T. Ascough, Royal Army Medical Corps

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (15342 Pte., R.A.M.C.); British War and Victory Medals (Major), good very fine (4) £700-900

M.C. London Gazette 17 December 1917:

‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in dressing wounded in the open for 48 hours, without sleep or rest, under heavy shell fire, after his shelter had been rendered untenable by four direct hits.’

Matthew Thomas Ascough was born in Hyde, Cheshire and enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps in March 1901, aged 24 years, stating his calling as medical student. Embarked for South Africa in the following month, he served there until August 1902, when he was discharged in the rank of Private. Having then qualified in medicine in 1907, he first entered the French theatre of war as a Captain in the 1/1 North Midland Field Ambulance (T.F.), a unit of the 46th North Midland Division, in February 1917, in which capacity he served for the remainder of the War, winning his M.C. for bravery south of Ypres on the 26-27 September. Ascough afterwards settled in Stockport; sold with a file of related research.