The Jack Webb Collection of Medals and Militaria

Four: Private L. E. Lawton, 19th Middlesex (St. Giles’ and St. George’s Bloomsbury) Rifle Volunteers and City of London Imperial Volunteers, later Sergeant, 9th (City of London) Battalion (Queen Victoria’s Rifles), London Regiment and Machine Gun Corps

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill (213 Pte. L. E. Lawton, C.I.V.); British War and Victory Medals (6019 Sjt. L. E. Lawton. M.G.C.); Territorial Force Efficiency Medal, E.VII.R. (406 L.Sjt: L. E. Lawton. 9/(C. of L.)B. Lon: Regt.) minor edge bruising, nearly very fine (4) £200-£240

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Jack Webb Collection of Medals and Militaria.

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Lewis Edward Lawton was born in Canonbury, Middlesex in 1874 and was reported by the City Press of 31 October 1900 to have been admitted into the British Orphan Asylum on 11 July 1883. He joined the 19th Middlesex (Bloomsbury Rifles) on 23 July 1895 and served with their detachment in South Africa during the Boer War with the Infantry Battalion of the City Imperial Volunteers.

Lawton was initiated into the Bloomsbury Rifles Masonic Lodge on 12 February 1908 and on 1 April the same year he attested for the 9th (City of London) Battalion (Queen Victoria's Rifles), being the new territorial unit resulting from the amalgamation of the Bloomsbury Rifles and Queen Victoria’s Rifles. He was awarded the Territorial Force Efficiency Medal per Army Order No. 7 of 1 January 1909, and served with the Queen Victoria’s Rifles until his two years expired on 31 March 1910.

Following the outbreak of the Great War, Lawton attested for the Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex) Regiment Army Reserve Special Reservists on 29 August 1914. Transferred to the Machine Gun Corps on 1 January 1916, he served, having been promoted Sergeant, with the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front from 26 February 1916. Posted home on 2 January 1918, he was discharged, no longer physically fit for war service on 6 February 1918, and was awarded a Silver War Badge.