Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Lieutenant C. Deane-Simmons, Devonshire Regiment, late 1st Rhodesia Regiment and Suffolk Regiment

1914-15 Star (L./Cpl.C. D. Simmons, 1st Rhodn. Rgt.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. C. Deane-Simmons); Coronation 1937, very fine and better (4) £300-350

Cyril Deane-Simmons first came to Salisbury, Rhodesia in 1910, from Port Elizabeth, South Africa. As recounted in an article in The Rhodesian Herald in January 1947, ‘one of the first things to impress him was the heavy pall of red dust which shrouded the town every evening, and the mud which turned the suburbs into a morass every rainy season, for in those days there were no tarmac roads. There were no more than three or four motor cars and the almost universal mode of travel was bicycles and cape carts drawn by two black mules for the more wealthy. Moonlight picnics were the rage and the dances that were held every six weeks were regarded as gala occasions ... In those days there were few girls in town and until typists were brought in from the Union you were virtually considered engaged to a girl if you had more than four dances with her.’

Enlisting in ‘A’ Company, 1st Rhodesia Regiment at Salisbury in late October 1914, aged 26, he served in German South-West Africa until July 1915, when he was demobilised in South Africa. He was subsequently commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, which unit he joined at Mudros in December 1915, but in October of the following year, in Egypt, he transferred to the 1/4th Battalion Devonshire Regiment, in which capacity he was actively employed in Mesopotamia and advanced to Lieutenant in July 1917. Having latterly served as the battalion’s Transport Officer and as officer commanding ‘C’ Company of the 1/4th, he was demobilised for repatriation to Rhodesia in March 1919.

Of his subsequent career the aforementioned article in The Rhodesian Herald states:

‘On returning to the colony at the age of 31, he was sent to Fort Victoria as Acting Assistant Magistrate on a salary of £290 a year ... In 1925 he was appointed Assistant Magistrate at Umtali and three years later he became Acting Civil Commissioner and Magistrate at Gwanda. He was Acting Civil Commissioner in Bulawayo from 1934-35, when he went to Fort Victoria as Civil Commissioner and Magistrate. He held the same post in Umtali in 1938 and in Salisbury from 1939 to 1943, when he was appointed Chairman of the Public Services Board.’

Deane-Simmons retired from the latter office in January 1947; sold with copied research and photographs.