Orders, Decorations and Medals

Five: Corporal A. E. Pearcey, 5th Dragoon Guards

1914 Star, with clasp (789 Pte., 5/D. Gds.); British War and Victory Medals (D-789 A. Cpl., 5-D. Gds.); Defence Medal, unnamed; R.S.P.C.A. Life Saving Medal, bronze (Mr Albert Edward Pearcey, 1926) lacking brooch bar, minor edge bruising, good fine and better (5) £300-350

Albert Edward Pearcey enlisted on 10 August 1907 and served in the 5th Dragoon Guards. With the regiment he entered the France/Flanders theatre of war on 15 August 1914. He was discharged on 5 September 1918 and awarded the Silver War Badge. He was awarded the R.S.P.C.A. Bronze Life Saving Medal in 1926 for rescuing a cat from a roof in Salisbury.

A newspaper clipping reads: ‘A large crowd on Friday evening watched a young man named Albert Edward Pearcey, of 19 Rampart Road, Salisbury, rescue a cat which had been on the housetops since the previous Sunday. He obtained a ladder with which to reach the roof, and then had to crawl, at great personal risk, along the slates until he reached the chimney on which the cat was sitting. To bring the animal down was the most difficult, because the long period it had been there had made it almost wild. However, Mr Pearcey, who is employed in the Engineering Department of the GPO, reached the ground and restored the cat to its owner - Mrs Bruton, of 3 Rampart Road.’

Mr Pearcey died on 25 July 1947. With copied m.i.c., S.W.B. roll extract, death certificate and photocopied photograph and with two newspaper clippings re the rescue and the named condolence slip that accompanied his Defence Medal.