Auction Catalogue

6 & 7 December 2017

Starting at 10:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

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Lot

№ 1071

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7 December 2017

Hammer Price:
£85

Three: Lieutenant H. F. Whitmore, Manchester Regiment, late Honourable Artillery Company, died in service in Jamaica, 2 March 1935

1914-15 Star (1798 Pte H. F. Whitmore. H.A.C.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. H. F. Whitmore.) very fine (3) £80-120

Hugh Frederick Whitmore was born in Surbiton, Surrey, in 1892, and was educated at Westminster School. A mercantile clerk in the chemicals industry, he enlisted in the Honourable Artillery Company and served during the Great War on the Western Front with the 1st Battalion H.A.C. form 15 February 1915. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion Manchester Regiment in August 1915, was seconded to the Machine Gun Corps on 27 March 1916, and was promoted Lieutenant on 7 November 1917. He served in Belgium, France, Egypt, Palestine and Syria, 1915-1918 and was wounded. He was restored to the Manchester Regiment (from secondment) on 10 March 1922 and promoted Captain on 4 February 1925. In 1927, Hugh married Amy Dorothea Mansfield, daughter of the Reverend Herbert Court Sturge, Vicar of Bodenham, Hereford.
Whitmore died in service, aged 42, whilst serving with 1st Battalion Manchester Regiment in Jamaica, on 2 March 1935. A memorial tablet in ‘The Garrison’ Chapel, Jamaica, states “In memory of Captain Hugh Frederick Whitmore and Lieutenant Walter John Goldsmith who died while serving with the 1st Bn. The Manchester Regiment in Jamaica.”

Hugh Whitmore is mentioned quite a number of times in Lawrence Tanner’s Journal, his head of house at Westminster. It seems they did not get on and Whitmore was ‘tanned’ (caned) by Tanner a couple of times:
25/1/1909: “I did not go down to Chiswicks but had dinner with the family and was ranted at by Hobson at 8:30 who came to tell me he had taken a crib [sheet] from Whitmore (of course) right under his nose. I told father and of course there was but one remedy so we had to have him up. He really seemed frightened, and like a crushed worm, all the go taken out of him. I have developed a deadly calm on these occasions, speaking very slowly and severely which I find effective. I said ‘you have been shown up to me for using a ‘crib’ in Prep tonight. Have you any excuse to make?’
‘I did not know that it was a House Offence.’
‘Of course it is a House Offence and a very bad one.’
He murmured something about other people not being had up and tanned for it. I looked straight through him (!) and asked idly if he had any other excuse to make. He said ‘no’, so we sent him out and spent the interim in squabbling who should execute; I was firm and said I was not going to come down into the cold for nothing, and refused to toss for it, I couldn’t resist a parting shot at Whitmore; when we had him in again, I remarked ‘Of course we shall have to tan you. You are a public nuisance. Go out.’
I gave him a pretty sound thrashing which he richly deserved and I hurt him somewhat. My gravity was rather upset, as the solemn procession started from Inner, by seeing the solemn gravity of Minchin just outside Chiswicks, but I sternly repressed the inclination to smile and stalked gauntly on.” 
26/1/1909: “Hobson tells me that Chiswicks are delighted at the execution of Whitmore, I wondered how they would take it, but they seem agreed that he wants to be squashed, and Whitmore himself seems somewhat wormified and there is no doubt that he has had a nasty ‘jar’ not to say a ‘rebuff’ after finding that for once public opinion on which he relies has very decidedly gone against him. I wish he would be less noisy, he has got it into his head that I hate him, indeed he told Mrs. Thresher so and he added that he reciprocated the feeling! He is quite wrong: I don’t care for him, he is at a silly and awkward age, but if he would make himself a little less conspicuous, we should get on alright. He is the only boy in the school who has not responded to my conciliatory efforts, I am perfectly willing to forgive and forget but at present he is simply a nuisance, three-quarters, rather more, of the noise of the house is caused by him, if you hear any voice raised it is certain to be his, and moreover he is incapable of taking a hint, one that does not wish to be always setting on a person, but the moment one overlooks anything, he does at once take it to mean that he may do more, and by sheer bluster makes the House (or rather Hall) believe him to be a much injured person. I am glad to hear Minchin the man is firm with him: ‘Either you stop using that ungentlemanly language or out you go from my room’ are, I hear, the methods he adopts. I am getting rather tired of Master Whitmore. I have tried to be kind and gentle, now I think I shall make myself a nuisance to him.”