Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War ‘Western Front’ M.C. group of four awarded to Captain P. J. Dunworth, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, late Connaught Rangers

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Tugela Heights, Relief of Ladysmith (4912 Sgt. P. Dunworth, 1st Connaught Rang.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 copy clasps (4912 Sgt. P. Dunworth, 1st Connaught Rang.) this with later impressed naming; British War Medal 1914-20 (Capt. P. J. Dunworth); together with an erased 1914-15 Star and Victory Medal, very fine (6) £1000-1400

M.C. London Gazette 1 February 1919. ‘T/Lt. (A./Capt.) 6th Bn. attd. 2nd Bn. R. Innis. Fus.’ ‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during the attack on Terhand on 29th September 1918. Although wounded he led his company on to its final objective, and the following day, when he was again wounded he carried out the reorganisation of his company before handing over.’

Patrick Joseph Dunworth was born in Co. Cork on 1 January 1878. Joining the Connaught Rangers he served as a Sergeant in the 1st Battalion in the Second Boer War and was wounded at Ladysmith on 23 February 1900. Invalided from the service he was later employed as a Clerk. With the start of the Great War he re-enlisted into the Connaught Rangers at Galway on 24 August 1914, aged 38 years. On 27 August he was promoted to Company Sergeant-Major of the 5th Battalion and in September 1915 he was advanced to Regimental Sergeant-Major. On 21 July 1915 he entered the Balkan theatre of war. He was discharged to a commission in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers on 27 January 1916 and joined his regiment at Bapaume, France. Again wounded he was posted to the Officers Training Battalion at Cambridge for a while before rejoining his regiment in time for the Second Battle of Ypres. In the latter months of the war he was twice wounded in action and was awarded the M.C. for his bravery in leading his men. Captain Dunworth was demobilised from the Army in 1919. With copied research and copied photographs.