Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: attributed to Flight Lieutenant H. R. Denison, Royal Air Force, late Canadian Mounted Rifles and Royal Flying Corps

British War and Victory Medals (Maj. H. R. Denison, R.A.F.), renamed; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Jubilee 1935, generally good very fine (5) £200-250

Arthur Herbert Denison was born in Calgary, Alberta, in May 1888, a member of the “Fighting Denisons” on account of his forebears, among them Captain John Denison who settled in Kingston, Ontario, in 1793 - it was one of the latter’s sons who founded Denison’s Horse.

For his own part, Arthur served in the Okanagan Mounted Rifles from June 1908, later re-titled the 30th British Columbian Horse, in which unit he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Spring of 1912. Mobilised on the outbreak of hostilities, he departed for England in May 1915 and went out to France with the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles in the following year, where he was wounded at Sanctuary Wood on the Somme on 3 June 1916. Invalided to England, he served as an instructor and later still as C.O. of the Trench Warfare School in the rank of Major, but briefly returned to France in the period January-March 1917.

At the end of the same year he applied for secondment to the Royal Flying Corps, and attended the School of Military Aviation at Reading, from whence he joined 30th Wing at Montrose, and qualified as a Camel Pilot, but he appears to have remained employed on the home establishment until returning to Canada in 1919, when he was placed on the Reserve of Officers.

Appointed a J.P. in 1932, he was awarded his Jubilee Medal in respect of services to the scouting movement and, with the renewal of hostilities, served as a recruiting officer for the R.A.F. He died in October 1955.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, comprising the recipient’s Federation Aeronautique Internationale (British Empire) Aviator’s Certificate (No. 7108), with portrait photograph and in the name of ‘Major Herbert Richard Dennison (16th Canadian Res. Bn.)’, a 1939-45 R.A.F. identity card, dated 1 February 1944, also with portrait photograph, and several original photographs, including interesting aviation subject matter from the Great War period.