Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Lieutenant A. S. Cumming, Royal Navy

1914-15 Star (S. Lt., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut., R.N.) mounted as worn, very fine (3) £250-300

Alistair Shand Cumming was born in 1896. On 15 January 1912 he was appointed a Midshipman aboard the battleship Colossus. On the same ship he was promoted to Acting Sub Lieutenant in May 1914. Promoted to Lieutenant in May 1916, he joined the submarine service in March 1917, joining the 9th Submarine Flotilla at Harwich. In July 1917 he was appointed First Lieutenant on the submarine E-27. In July 1918 he was appointed to the K-5 at Rosyth. Fortunately other appointments followed, the K-5 was to sink for unknown reasons on 20 January 1921. In October 1920 he commanded the submarine H-28 and in April 1923 was advanced to Lieutenant Commander. After a period at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich for a staff course, he received his last seagoing appointment in 1926 as commander of the submarine L-54. Transferred to the Retired List in 1927, he was advanced to Commander in 1934.

Commander Cumming married twice, firstly to Sylvia Nellie Cumming, nee Paul and secondly to Margaret Mary Cumming, nee Smith. Prior to his engagement to Miss Smith in April 1934, he had had a close relationship with a Mrs Margaret Elsie Douglas Bennett. As a result of Cumming breaking up with her, she committed suicide by taking drugs, having first threatened to shoot herself. The full story came out in the Coroner’s Inquest which was reported in The Times of 17 May 1934.

Commander Cumming himself died in tragic circumstances, when he committed suicide by shooting himself at home, on 21 July 1941. With copied research.