Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. Including a superb collection of medals to the King’s German Legion, Police Medals from the Collection of John Tamplin and a small collection of medals to the Irish Guards

Eight: Lieutenant-Colonel A. S. Beard, King’s African Rifles, late Connaught Rangers

1914 Star, with ‘slide-on’ clasp (2 Lieut., Conn. Rang.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Palestine 1945-48 (Major, K.A.R.), mounted as worn, generally good very fine (8) £250-300

Alan Stephen Beard was born in December 1892 and was educated at Marlborough College. Gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant to the Connaught Rangers from the O.T.C. in August 1914, he quickly saw action with the 2nd Battalion out in France and Belgium.

In the retreat from Mons, the 2nd Battalion suffered heavily, some 280 men being posted missing, and in September 1914, in heavy fighting on the Aisne, another 300 men befell a similar fate. In fact, by December, such were the 2nd’s casualties, that its survivors were amalgamated with the 1st Battalion. Beard is known to have been twice wounded during his service out in France and Belgium, and it seems probable that the first of these wounds was collected in the severe fighting of 1914, quite possibly on 3 November, the date given by War Services of Officers of the Army as marking the end of his first stint of active service on the Western Front. More certain is the fact he was wounded at Ypres on 26 April 1915, having returned to the Front in the previous January.

Beard went on to serve in Mesopotamia between January and June 1916, and again between October 1916 and April 1918, following which he fought with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force out in Palestine until October of the latter year. After the War he served as an A.D.C. to the G.O.C. 7th Meerut Division and retired in the rank of Captain in May 1922.

Writing to The Ranger in July 1954, Beard stated that he commanded four different units in the Second World War, namely ‘an Ethiopian Battalion, two K.A.R. Garrison Battalions and the Mauritius Defence Force. The K.A.R. units were only a Major’s command, but the other two carried the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and they gave me this exalted rank on retirement!’

Beard, who settled in Kenya, actually died back in London in November 1959.