Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Able Seaman A. F. P. Gibson, Royal Navy, a veteran of the Falklands engagement of 1914 who went on to participate in the famous Naval Field Gun Competition at Olympia in 1919

1914-15 Star (J. 9406 A.B., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (J. 9406 A.B., R.N.), together with related Naval Field Gun Competition Medal, silver, the reverse engraved, ‘Olympia, 1919, A. Gibson, R.N.’, contact marks, generally very fine, the last rare (4) £300-400

Arthur Frederick Parsons Gibson was born at Edgware, Middlesex in January 1893 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in August 1910. An Able Seaman by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he served for virtually the entire war in the cruiser H.M.S. Kent.

He consequently witnessed the action off the Falklands in December 1914 when the Kent fought a “Duel to the Death” with the Nurnberg and was hit on no less than 38 occasions. At length, however, she managed to punish her adversary even more severely, and eventually finished her off. Again, in March 1915, off the island of Juan Fernandez, the Kent pulverised the Dresden, an action that ended in the latter blowing-up; for a full and vivid account of Kent’s activities in the opening months of the War, see Keble Chatterton’s Gallant Gentlemen, pp. 85-127, and Surgeon T. B. Dixon’s edited diary, The Enemy Fought Splendidly.

Gibson was posted to the gunnery school Excellent in June 1918, an appointment that led to his participation in the famous Naval Field Gun Competition at Olympia in the following year, a tremendous feat of skill and strength which until recently survived under the auspices of the Royal Tournament; suprisingly, very few participants’ medals appear on the market, or certainly ones dating back to the very origins of this famous competition.

Gibson was discharged ‘time expired’ in December 1922.