Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family Group:

Three: Captain A. H. Tollemache, King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment
1914-15 Star (Lieut. A. H. Tollmache, R. Lanc. R.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Capt. A. H. Tollemache.) edge bruise to BWM, good very fine

Three: Nurse Mrs. Ivy Tollemache, née Pickering, Serbian Relief Fund, Voluntary Aid Detachment
British War and Victory Medals (I. G. Tollemache.); Serbia, Kingdom, Cross of Mercy, gilt and enamel; together with the recipient’s riband bar, very fine (6) £500-700

Archibald Henry Tollemache was born at Hastings, Sussex, in 1895 and was educated at Bournemouth Grammar School. On the outbreak of the Great War he enlisted in August 1914 into the Reserve Cavalry Regiment; selected for a commission, he was Commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Hampshire Regiment on 30 November 1914, before transferring to the 6th Battalion, King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) as a Lieutenant on 9 August 1915. He served with them during the Great War in the Gallipoli theatre of War from August 1915; was promoted temporary Captain on 12 December 1915; and was Mentioned in Despatches ‘for the gallant services rendered during the period of General Sir Charles Monro’s Command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force’ (London Gazette 13 July 1916). He suffered a gunshot wound to the head on 5 April 1916, during the attack on the Turkish positions at Hanneh on the Tigris in Mesopotamia- his unit was part of the 13th Division and was trying to break through the enemy line to relieve Kut. His wounds left him with a fractured skull and permanent residual epilepsy. Returning home, he married Miss Ivy Pickering in 1918, before relinquishing his commission on accounts of his wounds in February 1919, retaining the rank of Captain. He died on 28 November 1930, his death hastened by the effects of his wounds.

Ivy Tollemache, née Pickering, was born in Rode Heath, Cheshire, on 12 November 1889, and served during the Great War with the Serbian Relief Fund, as part of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, in Serbia from January to July 1915 (not entitled to a 1914-15 Star). She married Captain Archibald Tollemache in 1918.

Sold together with a photographic image of the recipient.