Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Able Seaman H. Epsley, Royal Navy

China 1900, no clasp (Boy 1 Cl., H.M.S. Rosario), with second initial ‘P.’; 1914-15 Star (200398 A.B., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (200398 A.B., R.N.); Royal Naval Good Shooting Medal, E.VII.R. (200398 A.B., H.M.S. Myrmidon, 1905, 12 Pr. Q.F.) this last with tightened suspension rivet, the earlier awards with heavy contact wear and edge bruising, fine or better, the remainder generally very fine (5) £250-300

Henry Epsley was born in Liverpool and joined the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in August 1898. Advanced to Able Seaman during his time aboard H.M.S. Rosario, between March 1900 and May 1903, when he served off China during the Boxer Rebellion, Epsley was awarded his Good Shooting Medal aboard the destroyer Myrmidon in 1905. But having been advanced to Leading Seaman in March of the following year, he was reduced to Able Seaman after 14 days in the cells in the summer of 1908. During the Great War he served in the battleship Lord Nelson from the outbreak of hostilities until September 1916, much of that time being spent in the Dardanelles, and, alas, for Epsley, in the ship’s cells. His final seagoing appointment was in the cruiser Liverpool between December 1917 and April 1919, in which latter month he was pensioned ashore.