Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Six: Lance-Corporal A. Harwood, 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards and Machine Gun Corps, later Home Guard

1914 Star, with clasp (6788 Pte. A. Harwood. 4/D.Gds.); British War and Victory Medals (6788 A. Cpl. A. Harwood. 4-D. Gds.); India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, Afghanistan N.W.F. 1919 (47586 Pte. A. Harwood. M.G.C.); Defence and War Medals 1939-45; together with a 4th Dragoon Guards cap badge, this damaged, and shoulder title; Machine Gun Corps cap badge and shoulder title; National Defence Company E.VIII.R. cap badge; and Home Guard shoulder title, very fine and better (6) £200-£240

Alexander Harwood was born in Southampton, Hampshire in 1894. He attested for the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards on 9 April 1912 aged 18 years and served during the Great War with B Squadron on the Western Front from 16 August 1914. On 22 August, a squadron of the unit became the first members of the B.E.F. to engage Germans in action just outside of Mons.

Transferring to the Machine Gun Corps on 19 February 1917, Harwood served with the 16th Squadron in Mesopotamia as part of the 7th (Meerut) Cavalry Brigade, from 21 May 1917 and also during the Third Afghan War in 1919 with the 15th Squadron as part of the 6th (Poona) Cavalry Brigade.

Sold with the recipient’s Old Contemptibles Association lapel badge, the reverse numbered ‘8985B’; an identity disc fashioned from a silver Mesopotamian coin inscribed ‘47586. L/Cpl Harwood. A. M.G.C. 16th Sqdn. 1918’; and a portrait photograph of the recipient.