Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War 1918 ‘Western Front’ M.C. group of four awarded to Captain H. G. Percival, Welsh Regiment, late Northamptonshire Yeomanry

Military Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; 1914 Star, with clasp (145373 Pte. H. G. Percival. 1/1 North’n Yeo.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Capt. H. G. Percival.) mounted as worn and housed in a blue leather case, good very fine (4) £1000-1400

M.C. London Gazette 1 January 1918:
‘For valuable services rendered in connection with Military Operations in the Field.’

Helier George Percival was born in Lyddington, County Rutland, the son of the Rev. Charles Percival, Vicar of Nassington-cum-Yarwell, Northamptonshire. Educated at Rugby, he attested for the Northamptonshire Yeomanry on 9 September 1914, and served during the Great War with ‘B’ Squadron, 1st/1st Battalion on the Western Front from 6 November 1914. The following January he applied for a temporary commission in the Welsh Regiment, and his application was personally endorsed by his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel C. H. Young (who was also Percival’s uncle). He was commissioned temporary Second Lieutenant on 26 February 1915, and embarked with the 9th (Service) Battalion for France in July 1915. He served with the Battalion on the Western Front for the remainder of the War (in a letter of condolence to the wife of a fellow officer killed in action in September 1917, Percival states that he was ‘the only officer who has been with the Battalion the whole time since it came out to France’), and was promoted Lieutenant on 23 August 1915, and Captain on 28 November 1916. He was injured in the back on 30 June 1916 when his horse rolled over into barbed wire, and further injured after the Battle of Messines, by falling off his horse at a horse show, whilst taking part in a show-jumping competition. He served variously as Battalion Transport Officer, and as both the Brigade Transport Officer and the Brigade Staff officer for Transport within 58th Brigade. For his services during the Great War he was Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 4 January 1917), and was awarded the Military Cross.

Percival was presented with this Military Cross by H.M. King George V at Buckingham Palace on 12 July 1919. He resigned his commission on 23 July 1919, and retained the rank of Captain. Retiring to Alresford, Hampshire, he died on 9 August 1965.

The novelist Ford Madox Ford was also commissioned into the Welsh Regiment, and served alongside Percival in the transport section. In an essay entitled Epilogue, he described Percival as ‘a gleaming figure on a white horse with the water dripping from his tin hat.’

Sold with copied attestation papers and a large quantity of research.