Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 2nd issue, fixed suspension (K. 7979 A.-S.P.O. H. Hunt, H.M.S. Columbine) very fine £20-30

Harold Hunt was born in Worcestershire in July 1889 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in August 1910. The outbreak of hostilities found him serving as a Stoker 1st Class aboard the cruiser H.M.S. Liverpool, in which ship he remained until July 1915 and was consequently present at Heligoland Bight in the previous year. Removing to the destroyer Afridi in October 1915, he served in her in the Dover Patrol until January 1917, a period that witnessed Afridi finishing off at least one enemy submarine in March 1916. Hunt next came ashore to Victory II, but by the time of the Armistice he had returned to sea in the battle cruiser Princess Royal as a Leading Stoker. He was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in October 1925 and was advanced to Stoker Petty Officer in June of the following year; a note on his service record states that a character reference was sent to Brandon’s Brewery in Putney in 1934, so he must have been pensioned around this time.