Auction Catalogue

17 September 1999

Starting at 12:00 PM

.

Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Regus Conference Centre  12 St James Square  London  SW1Y 4RB

Lot

№ 473

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17 September 1999

Hammer Price:
£680

A Great War M.C. group of eight awarded to Major W. R. Birrell, East Kent Regiment

Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse inscribed ‘Capt., 1st Bn. The Buffs. 1917’; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Relief of Kimberley, Orange Free State (3714 C.Sgt., E. Kent Regt.); 1914-15 Star (2.Lieut., E. Kent R.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt.); War Medal; Coronation 1937; Army L.S. & G.C., E.VII.R. (3714 C.Sjt., E. Kent Regt.) contact wear to the earlier medals, otherwise nearly very fine or better (8) £400-450

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Brett Collection of Medals to The Buffs.

View The Brett Collection of Medals to The Buffs

View
Collection

M.C. London Gazette 1 January 1917.

William Robb Birrell was born on 22 January 1874, and entered the Buffs in 1892. He served with the 2nd Battalion, Mounted Infantry, in South Africa during the Boer War, and was wounded in the head at Klip Kraal on 16 February 1900, being invalided home on 16 July. He was commissioned into the Buffs on 9 January 1915, becoming Adjutant of the 1st Battalion at the end of the year, and Lieutenant (Temp/Captain) on 18 January 1916, and promoted to Captain on 30 November 1916. He went to France in January 1915 and was present with the 1st Battalion at the action at Hooge, 9-12 August 1915. During the Second World War he was Adjutant of No. 3 A.M.P.C. Centre at Richborough, and was later in charge of a centre dealing entirely with German, Austrian and Polish refugees from Nazi oppression, which earned for him the appreciation of the Commanding Officer of the Centre, the Marquis of Reading. When the Centre was disbanded in 1942, Major Bill Birrell returned to his British Legion post in London.