Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War Ypres/Polygon Wood operations M.M. group of five awarded to Private C. Tilburn, Rifle Brigade, late London Regiment and afterwards Royal Artillery

Military Medal, G.V.R. (B-200619 Pte., 16/Rif. Bde.), surname spelt ‘Tilborn’; British War and Victory Medals (3613 Pte., 8-Lond. R.); Jubilee 1935, privately engraved, ‘1026310 Dvr. Charles Tilburn, M.M., Royal Artillery’; Army L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 3rd issue, Regular Army (1026310 Dvr., M.M., R.A.) the first polished and the third with corrosion / staining, otherwise about very fine or better (5) £250-300

M.M. London Gazette 14 January 1918. The following statement of gallant deeds was placed on record by the G.O.C., 39th Division in October 1917:

‘[For] gallant conduct on 28 September 1917, S.E. of Ypres, when, the advance being held up by a strong point, you went on alone under heavy machine-gun fire and killed several of the enemy, thus enablng the advance to continue.

Charles Tilburn, who was from Peckham, first went to war with the 8th Battalion, London Regiment. Subsequently, however, he appears to have had periods of attachment to the Rifle Brigade and to the Royal Fusiliers, and actually finished the War with the Royal Field Artillery.

Sold with original recommendation from the G.O.C., 39th Division and Army Record Office forwarding letter for the M.M., this last dated 27 September 1919; and original Viceregal Lodge, Simla forwarding certificate for the Jubilee Medal 1935, in the name of ‘Driver R.A., Charles Tilburn, M.M.’