Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria to include a Fine Collection of Napoleonic Medals

A Great War auxiliary patrol operations D.S.C. group of four awarded to Chief Skipper H. W. Bristow, Royal Naval Reserve, who also appears to have served in Q-Ships out of Granton naval base

Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., Hallmarks for London 1918, the reverse privately inscribed, ‘Presented by His Most Gracious Majesty King George V, Oct. 24th 1918, at Buckingham Palace, to Chief Skipper Walter Horace Bristow, R.N.R.’; 1914-15 Star (WSA. 86 Skr., R.N.R.); British War and Victory Medals (W.S.A. 86 Ch. Skr., R.N.R.), together with his Granton Naval Base Medal for Zeal, silver, hallmarks for Birmingham 1917, the reverse inscribed, ‘Chief Skipper Horace W. Bristow, R.N.R., C. of E., 21.1.18, Granton Naval Base’, integral loop and ring-bar suspension, contact marks, generally very fine (5) £1800-2200

D.S.C. London Gazette 20 September 1918:

‘For services in the Auxiliary Patrol, Minesweeping and Coastal Motor Boats, between 1 January and 30 June 1918.’

The original recommendation states:

‘Chief Skipper Bristow is Senior Officer of Escort Force F and has rendered most excellent service on escort duty, and has always shown great zeal and efficiency.’

Horace Walter Bristow was born in Ramsgate, Kent in December 1868 and obtained his Certificate of Competency as a Skipper in August 1898. Subsequently employed by the Hull Steam Fishing and Ice Company, and Messrs. Hellyer & Co., he also enrolled in the Royal Naval Reserve in August 1913.

Briefly employed in the Cameo following the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, he transferred to another trawler, the Sicyon, that September, and remained similarly engaged until the summer of 1917.

Next joining the Granton Naval Base Gunner as a newly appointed Chief Skipper, he is also listed by some sources as having served in the trawler Gunner, a Q-ship, from August 1917 until July 1918. His service record also lists Gunner as his appointment, but with the names of other vessels below, among them the trawler Strathearn, a decoy ship that was engaged by the U-78 16 miles off May Island on 21 March 1918, and the armed trawler Scarron. As per the above cited recommendation (ADM 171/84, refers), he was awarded his D.S.C. for his command of the latter vessel, which distinction he received at a Buckingham Palace investiture held on 24 October 1918.

Bristow’s final appointment was in the Pekin, from which he was demobilised in December 1919; sold with copied research.