British Campaign and Gallantry Medals

A Great War mine-laying operations D.S.M. pair awarded to Colour-Sergeant A. B. Cox, Royal Marine Light Infantry

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (PO. 6416 Sergt. A. B. Cox, R.M.L.I., H.M.S. Princess Margaret); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue (PO./6416 Alfred B. Cox, Col. Sert. Major, R.M.L.I.), good very fine or better (2) £500-600

D.S.M. London Gazette 1 October 1917:

‘The following awards have been approved.’

Alfred Benjamin Cox was in Alverstoke, Hampshire in December 1878 and enlisted in the Royal Marine Light Infantry as a boy bugler in February 1893. A Sergeant serving ashore in the Portsmouth Division by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he joined the minelayer H.M.S. Princess Margaret in September 1915, which ship - a liner - had been under construction for the Canadian Pacific Railroad Co. when requisitioned by the Admiralty. Armed with two 4-inch and two 3-inch guns, and capable of carrying up to 400 mines, the Princess Margaret, unlike her consort Princess Irene, survived the War, having participated in Force C’s light forces raid in the Kattegat in April 1918. Cox, having been awarded the D.S.M. and advanced to Colour-Sergeant, came ashore from the Princess Margaret in October 1917, was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in March 1920 and was discharged in January 1921.