Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Captain G. E. Lea, 2nd Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, who died of wounds received in action in the Battle of the Aisne in September 1914

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State (Capt: & Adjt: G. E. Lea. Worc: Rgt:); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Cpt. & Adjt. G. E. Lea. Worc. Rgt.) this pair mounted as worn; 1914 Star, with clasp (Capt. G. E. Lea. Worc: R.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. G. E. Lea.) together with Bronze Memorial Plaque (Gerald Ernest Lea), the medals contained in a hinged fitted case, the first two good very fine, otherwise extremely fine (6) £1000-1200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to the Worcestershire Regiment formed by Group Captain J. E. Barker.

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Gerald Ernest Lea, Worcestershire Regiment, the son of his Hon. Judge George Harris Lea, was born in Hampstead, London, on the 30th June, 1877, and was educated at Locker’s Park and Charterhouse. He received his first commission from the Militia in 1897; was appointed Adjutant of his battalion in November, 1900, while in South Africa, and promoted Captain in December of the same year, after a little more than three years’ service. He remained in South Africa for three years, serving chiefly in the Orange River Colony, and was awarded the King’s and Queen’s medals, each with two clasps, for the Boer War. In 1912 he passed the final examination of the Staff College, thus obtaining the right to the coveted letters p.s.c. after his name.

At the commencement of the Great War he proceeded to the Continent with the 1st Army Corps of the Expeditionary Force; was present at the Battle of Mons, all through the retirement from Mons to the Marne; and then in the advance from the Marne to the Aisne. At the Battle of the Aisne, on the 14th September, 1914, near the village of Verneuil, he was struck on the head by a piece of shrapnel and died three hours afterwards.

He married on the 7th August, 1912, Brenda, the only child of H. A. Wadworth, Esq., of Brenton Court, Herefordshire, and left one child, Marigold Geraldine, born on the 28th October, 1914. Captain Lea was a member of the Army and Navy Club (The Bond of Sacrifice refers).

Sold with a small original portrait photograph and two glass bottomed hallmarked silver tankards, each bearing the inscription ‘Presented to the Officers 1st Bn. Worcestershire Regt. by Capt. & Adjt. G. E. Lea Sept. 1903’ below a regimental badge, very heavily polished but still legible. Together with eleven personal letters home, the first five as a young child or from school, four from the Boer War, these in envelopes, one from Mustapha Barrack, Alexandria, 1913, and the final one to his brother shortly departing for France in August 1914, appointing executors.

With comprehensive research including several copied images and contemporary news cuttings.