Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Lieutenant-Colonel E. H. Openshaw, Somerset Light Infantry, who served as second-in-command of the 1/4th Battalion in Mesopotamia, and died there of heatstroke in July 1917

1914-15 Star (Lt. Col. E. H. Openshaw. Som. L.I.); British War and Victory Medals (Lt. Col. Openshaw.); Territorial Decoration, G.V.R., the reverse hallmarked London 1912, mounted for display, extremely fine (4) £200-£260

Edward Hyde Openshaw was a student of Bristol Medical School and took his degree as M.R.C.S. in 1890. He was for some time house surgeon of the Bristol Eye Hospital before joining a medical practise at Cheddar with Dr Statham. He became an officer of the old 3rd Battalion, Somerset Volunteers, and when the Territorial regime came in he continued in the 4th Somersets, and rose to second in command of the regiment. He was given the rank of honorary Lieutenant-Colonel, and went to India in October 1914, as Major and second in command of the 1/4th, seeing some fighting on the North West Frontier in the spring of 1916. Ordered to Mesopotamia, the battalion was engaged in the Kut Relief Expeditionary Force, and in the battle of Dujailah on March 8th he led his men in the assault on the Turkish positions. After the hardships of that campaign he was invalided to India, and was later made Commandant of the Convalescent Depot at Wellington, in South India. He was, however, anxious to return to active service with his battalion, and pressed the authorities to send him back to Mesopotamia. He remained in good health until the beginning of July, when he was reported dangerously ill, and died of heatstroke in hospital at Nasariyeh on the Euphrates at the age of forty-nine.

Lieutenant-Colonel E. H. Openshaw died of heatstroke on 23 July 1917, and is buried in Basra War Cemetery, Iraq. Sold with comprehensive research.