Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Petty Officer 2nd Class Lewis Goff, Royal Navy - the man who piped Rear-Admiral Meurer aboard the British flagship Queen Elizabeth at the surrender of the German fleet, November 1918

1914-15 Star (170905 P.O.2, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (170905 P.O.2, R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 1st issue (170905 Lewis Goff, Boatn., H.M. Coast Guard) some contact marks, very fine (lot) £300-350

Lewis/Louis Goff was born in Calshot Castle, Hampshire on 8 August 1876. Living at Boldre, Lymington, Hampshire and employed as a Servant, he enlisted into the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class on 5 December 1892. He was advanced to Boy 1st Class in February 1894; Ordinary Seaman in August 1894; Able Seaman in May 1895; Leading Seaman in January 1900 and Petty Officer 2nd Class in July 1902. Prior to the Great War he served in the Coast Guard and was awarded the L.S. & G.C. Medal in 1912. During the early months of the Great War he was based at H.M.S. Excellent (Portsmouth), August-December 1914. Throughout the bulk of the war he served on the battleship H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth, December 1914-July 1919, seeing active service off the coast of Gallipoli during 1915 but sadly missing the action at Jutland. By the end of the war the ship was the fleet flagship. In November 1918 German Rear-Admiral Meurer came aboard H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth, as a representative of Admiral Franz von Hipper, to negotiate, with Admiral Beatty, the details of the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet. Petty Officer Goff was the man who piped Admiral Meurer aboard the flagship. After the war he served as a Coastguard at Pentewan, retiring in 1924. It was his fervent hope in the early years of the Second World War to be able to pipe a defeated Admiral of the German Fleet on to the British flagship once more! Sadly this was not to be, Lewis Goff died of chronic bronchitis at St. Austell, Cornwall on 17 January 1941.

With a wealth of original papers and items, including:

Silver Bosun’s Pipe with which he piped Rear-Admiral Meurer aboard H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth in 1918, with attached chain.

Newspaper cuttings dating from December 1939: featuring the full story of Goff piping the defeated German admiral aboard ship, with one picture of him saluting the Admiral aboard, one of the pipe and two others of Goff in later life.

Brass shoe-horn; original Certificate of Service (to 1919); Copy of Certificate of Service (to 1905); Coast Guard Certificates of Service (4); Gunnery and Torpedo History Sheets (2); Birth Certificate (date given as 4 March 1877); Marriage Certificate; Death Certificate; ‘German Navy’s Surrender’ - souvenir magazine; photographs of the recipient in naval uniform (3); photograph of the recipient as a coast guard (1); other photographs (3). Note: many of the papers are damaged.