Orders, Decorations and Medals

A good Great War D.C.M. group of four awarded to Sergeant A. Wagstaffe, King’s Own Scottish Borderers and Machine Gun Corps

Distinguished Conduct Medal, G.V.R. (15482 Sjt. A. Wagstaffe, 30/M.G.C.); 1914-15 Star (16631 Pte., K.O. Sco. Bord.), surname spelt ‘Wagstaff’; British War and Victory Medals (16631 Sjt., K.O.S.B.), together with his father’s Territorial Force Efficiency Medal, G.V.R. (173 Cpl. J. E. Wagstaffe, 6/Ches. Regt.), this with minor official correction to surname, generally very fine or better (4) £700-900

D.C.M. London Gazette 3 September 1918:

‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. This N.C.O. was Sergeant of a section of guns which took part in the two days heavy fighting. He started by long range fire on the enemy advancing over a ridge, but soon had to shift, two guns having to be left behind owing to the violence of the barrage. In the evening, he took out a party and fetched in these two guns and ammunition. Shortly after the section officer was severely wounded and, owing to heavy casualties, only one gun could be manned. The next day, after further heavy bombardment, the enemy again attacked, and he kept his gun in action till they were within fifty yards, when he got his gun away, the company officer being killed.’

Alfred Wagstaffe, a native of Hyde, Cheshire, where he was educated at the local day school, was the son of Joseph Wagstaffe, late of the Cheshire Regiment (Territorials). Young Alfred enlisted in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers in November 1914, went out to France with the 9th Battalion in July 1915, and received a bullet wound in the thigh in the Battle of Loos that September. Returning to active service in early 1916, he transferred to 30/Machine Gun Corps, was advanced to Sergeant and won his D.C.M. for gallant deeds near Ypres on 25-26 April 1918; sold with several copied local newspaper features from which the above information has been taken.