Auction Catalogue

16 December 2003

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Lot

№ 161

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16 December 2003

Hammer Price:
£360

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Capt. A. S. E. Annesley, Rif. Bde.) minor official correction to unit, good very fine £300-400

Arthur Sydney Evelyn Annesley was the grandson of the 10th Viscount Valentia, born in 1865 and educated at Eton College. He entered the Rifle Brigade in 1887 and was promoted Lieutenant in 1891 and Captain in 1895. He was the Adjutant of the Artist’s Rifles (20th Middlesex VRC) from 1896 to 1901. He served in the Boer War with the 1st Battalion, Rifle Brigade and was placed on the Reserve of Officers in 1903.

Captain Annesley’s tragic death features in one of the most renowned books on the First World War, Paul Fussell’s
The Great War and Modern Memory. He was driven to commit suicide in August 1914 by ‘the feeling that he was not going to be accepted for service’, as stated at his inquest that was reported in The Times.