Orders, Decorations and Medals

Three: Captain J. W. Hudson, 35th Scinde Horse, late South Nottinghamshire Yeomanry, a Gallipoli veteran who survived the loss of the transport Leasowe Castle in May 1918

1914-15 Star (2 Lieut. J. W. Hudson, S. Notts. Hrs.); ); British War Medal 1914-20 (Lieut. J. W. Hudson); General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Iraq (Capt. J. W. Hudson), good very fine or better (3) £250-300

John Warnes Hudson, a ‘gentleman farmer’ and formerly a Private in the Norfolk Yeomanry, was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the 1/1st South Nottinghamshire Yeomanry (The South Nottinghamshire Hussars) in April 1915. Arriving in Egypt in October 1915, he joined his regiment in Gallipoli where, as noted by the unit’s war diarist, ‘in the day time the men lay exhausted on the fire steps, their faces covered in swarms of flies which they had not the energy to brush away.’ No doubt to everyone’s relief, the South Nottinghamshire Hussars were embarked for Mudros during the night of 1 November.

Hudson remained actively employed in Salonika and the Middle East until May 1918, by which stage the regiment had been formed into ‘B’ Battalion, M.G.C., with the Warwickshire Yeomanry. Ordered to France, the Battalion embarked in the transport Leasowe Castle on the 26th, which ship was torpedoed and sunk on the following day with a loss of 92 men. The survivors, Hudson among them, subsequently arrived in France in June 1918, where the unit was re-designated the 100th Battalion, M.G.C.; he appears to have suffered an injury at Etaples and was evacuated home.

Transferring to the Indian Army in December 1918, Hudson was attached to the 35th Scinde Horse in March 1920, in which capacity he was actively employed as a Captain in the Iraq operations (Medal & clasp). Having then served as an A.D.C. to the General Officer Commanding Assam District, he was placed on the Retired List in September 1922. He returned to his pre-hostilities occupation and, by the late 1930s, had a 400 acre mixed farm at Stow, Kings Lynn, Norfolk; sold with copied research.