Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria including the collection to Naval Artificers formed by JH Deacon

Nine: Colonel E. G. St. Aubyn, D.S.O., King’s Royal Rifle Corps, onetime attached West Riding Regiment and a Brigade Commander in the rank of Brigadier-General

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Orange Free State, South Africa 1902 (2/Lieut., K.R.R.C.); 1914-15 Star (Major, K.R. Rif. C.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Brig. Gen.); Defence and War Medals; Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; French Croix de Guerre 1914-17, the first with contact wear, generally good very fine (9) £400-500

Edward Geoffrey St. Aubyn was born in August 1880 and was educated at Eton, where he was Captain of the Oppidans and in the Rowing Eight, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Commissioned into the 4th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps as a 2nd Lieutenant in May 1901, he quickly witnessed active service in South Africa, where he participated in the operations in Orange River Colony between January and May 1902. Placed on retired pay in September 1911, he was advanced to Captain on the Special Reserve in November 1913 and to temporary Major in his old regiment on the outbreak of hostilities.

St. Aubyn joined the 7th Battalion out in France in April 1915, but at the end of the year he was advanced to Lieutenant-Colonel and appointed to the command of the 1/4th Battalion, West Riding Regiment and, in November 1916, the 1/7th Battalion of the same regiment, both of which saw action in France. Described by one regimental historian as ‘a very quiet, but exceptionally competent, Commanding Officer, who earned the respect of all,’ St. Aubyn’s driving ambition to command a Battalion of the K.R.R.C. was realised in due course, when he was appointed C.O. of the 2nd Battalion. With the latter he was wounded in the foot at the Battle of Berthaucourt in mid-September 1918 and again at the capture of Pontruet at the end of the month, when he won the D.S.O. (London Gazette 11 January 1919):

‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. Although wounded early in the day, he refused to leave his battalion until the fighting died down in the evening. He handled his battalion throughout with marked ability, and superintended the reorganization of his dispositions after the objective had been obtained. The success of the attack was largely due to his determination and to the fighting spirit with which his example inspired the battalion.’

Also the recipient of a French Croix de Guerre and a mention in despatches, St. Aubyn latterly commanded the 3rd Infantry Brigade in the rank of Brigadier-General. He was invalided in 1919, at the age of 39 years, but retained his military links with an appointment as a member of the Hampshire Regiment T.A. in the 1920s. The renewal of hostilities witnessed his return to uniform as a Captain in the 8th Battalion (Home Defence), Hampshires, and in the course of 1940 he was made a Lieutenant-Colonel in the same Battalion, commanding the unit’s garrison in Southampton at the time of the air raids. Latterly he was Honorary Colonel of the 642 L.A.A. / S.L. Regiment.

St. Aubyn afterwards settled down in Hampshire, where he became one of the leading figures of the county, serving as a J.P. and D.L., among other public duties. ‘A delightful character,’ with a ‘disarming sense of humour ... he never ceased to meet this heavy demand, in spite of the after effects of gas, from which he had suffered since the end of the First World War’. The Colonel, who ‘was one of the finest shots in the country and a very capable fisherman,’ died in 1960.