Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant-Colonel W. H. Benett-Dampier, Cheshire Regiment, late Imperial Yeomanry

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (Capt. W. H. Bennett, Imp. Yeo.); British War Medal 1914-20 (Lt. Col. W. H. Benett-Dampier) BWM officially re-impressed and suspension re-affixed, otherwise good very fine (2) £300-400

Provenance: Buckland Dix & Wood, October 1995.

William Henry Benett-Dampier was born with the surname ‘Bennett’ on 10 January 1869, the son of the Rev. John William Bennett, Vicar of St. Paul’s, Hampstead. Educated at Merchant Taylor’s School, he accompanied the New South Wales Branch of the Royal Geographical Society’s Expedition to New Guinea in 1887. He visited Constantinople in 1896, and was awarded the Ottoman Order of Medjidieh, Third Class. He subsequently accompanied Turkish troops in the Græco-Turkish War, 1897, and was with the United States Army in Cuba 1897-98. Prior to the Boer War he was ranked as a Captain in the 3rd Middlesex Volunteer Artillery. During the Boer War served in the Imperial Yeomanry, the Intelligence Department and the Pietersburg Light Horse, receiving the Queen’s medal with three clasps and the King’s medal with two. Commissioned a Captain in the 3rd Battalion Cheshire Regiment in 1904, he was awarded the Ottoman Order of Osmanieh Second Class and Order of Medjidieh Second Class in 1907. In the same year he assumed the name of ‘Benett-Dampier’ in lieu of ‘Bennett’.

During the Great War Benett-Dampier served as a recruiting officer for the Cheshire Regiment. In November 1914 he was promoted to Temporary Major in the 12th Battalion Cheshire Regiment and in December 1914 was advanced to Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel in command of the 14th Battalion. Transferring back to the 12th Battalion in February 1915 he returned to recruiting duties. Benett-Dampier relinquished his temporary rank in September 1916, reverting to the rank of Captain in the Reserve of Officers but was granted the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Reserve of Officers in November 1917. He ceased to belong to the Reserve in September 1918 due to the age limit. He died at Eversley, Hampshire on 8 November 1930.