Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family group:

Four: Captain Sir Edward A. Stewart-Richardson, Bart., 1st Battalion, Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), late Queensland Mounted Infantry, who died on 28 November 1914, from the effects of wounds received the previous month at Ypres
Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 5 clasps, Cape Colony, Driefontein, Transvaal, Wittebergen, South Africa 1901, the date clasp a tailor’s copy (Capt: Sir E. A. S. Richardson. Q’land M.I.); 1914 Star, with clasp (Capt Sir E. A. Stewart-Richardson. Bt: R. Highrs.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. Sir E. A. Stewart-Richardson. Bt.) nearly extremely fine

Four: Major I. R. H. Stewart-Richardson, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, who was seriously wounded and Mentioned in Despatches for the Battle of the Campoleone Salient, Anzio, January 1944
1939-45 Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, with M.I.D. Oak Leaf, with Army Council enclosure and Army Medal Office enclosure in card box of issue addressed to ‘Major Sir I. R. H. Stewart-Richardson, Lyndale, Longcross, Surrey’; together with the related four mounted miniature awards; King’s Badge in box of issue; and wartime issued smaller bronze M.I.D oak leaf emblems (2) to be worn on uniform, the last with War Office letter giving instructions for wearing, extremely fine

The mounted group of six miniature dress medals attributed to Temporary Captain C. T. H. Richardson, M.C., Royal Field Artillery, who was decorated for gallantry at Tobruk, 1941
Military Cross, G.VI.R.; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star, 1 clasp, 8th Army; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, mounted as worn, nearly extremely fine (lot) £2,000-£3,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Barry Hobbs Collection of Great War Medals.

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Sir Edward Austin Stewart-Richardson, 15th Baronet, the eldest son of Sir James Stewart-Richardson, 14th Bart., of Pentcaitland, Pitfour Castle, Perth, was born at Edinburgh on 24 July 1872 and was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Glenalmond, Perthshire. In September 1890 he joined the 3rd Battalion, Royal Highlanders, being promoted Lieutenant in March 1892, and Captain in February 1900. From 1899 to 1902 he was A.D.C. to Lord Lamington, the Governor of Queensland. In the South African War he served with the 2nd Battalion, Black Watch and with the Queensland Mounted Infantry, taking part in the operations in the Orange River Free State, including the action at Vet River, and in the Orange River Colony, including the actions at Rhenoster River, Wittebergen, and Wittepoort, for which he received the Queen’s Medal with five clasps.

On volunteering for service in the Great War, he was attached to the 1st Battalion of his old regiment, the Black Watch, arriving with them in France on 22 September 1914, and died in London on 28 November the same year, of wounds received at Gheluvelt on 27 October during the First Battle of Ypres. He had married Lady Constance Mackenzie, younger daughter of Francis, 2nd Earl of Cromartie, in 1904, and left two sons. (The Bond of Sacrifice by Col. L. A. Clutterbuck refers).


Sir Ian Rorie Hay Stewart-Richardson, 16th Baronet, the eldest son of the above, was born on 25 September 1904 and was educated at the Imperial Service College, 1919-1922. Prior to the Second World War he travelled widely - adventures which are alluded to in the History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War by Major D. J. L. Fitzgerald, M.C.:
‘Then came Major Rory Stewart-Richardson. He was almost too cheerful. His large face, with sandy hair all over it, glowed, and he began to fill in the time by telling a familiar story of one of his macabre adventures in New Guinea. He had once, it seems, found a gold mine in some desolate jungle. “Unfortunately, my two companions died of fever on the way back,” it always ended, and he could never understand why everybody always laughed.’

Commissioned Second Lieutenant into the Irish Guards on 12 October 1939, he served with them during the Second World War initially in North Africa receiving promotion to War Substantive Lieutenant 12 April 1941, Temporary Captain 8 January 1942, War Substantive Captain 19 September 1942 and Temporary Major 19 September 1942. In command of No. 1 Company, 1st Battalion during Operation Shingle - the Allied amphibious landing at Anzio - his unit was among the first onto the beach on 22 January 1944. Meeting stronger than expected resistance in the attempted breakout and driven back to the beachhead, the 1st Irish Guards were involved in heavy fighting at Carroceto, 25-26 January 1944 repelling several enemy attacks and also experienced heavy casualties in the Battle of the Campoleone Salient, 30 January - 3 February 1944. Although inflicting heavy losses on the German forces, at Campoleone the 1st Irish Guards became surrounded and, confronting armour, were forced to fight their way back through to allied lines, Major Stewart-Richardson being among the wounded:
‘“When the companies got the order to withdraw,” wrote Major FitzGerald afterwards, “the situation was not very bright. We decided to take the obvious route back down the railway line. As we were quietly leaving our positions a German officer came running towards us flourishing a revolver. He was duly killed, but the shots attracted the attention of a nest of machine-gunners.” Whole belts of bullets swept across the open stretch of ground that lay between the sunken road and the nearest cutting on the railway line. Only a man who could run had any chance of surviving. The wounded were collected in the safest place, under the bridge over the sunken road.

The remainder, under Major Rory Stewart-Richardson, made a dash for the embankment. “The Bren gun covering fire was not very effective, because of the long range and the number of German machine guns, and the companies received rather heavy casualties getting into the embankment. The Companies paused in the embankment while they prepared to fight their way back down the railway line. The only help they could get was smoke. Lieutenant Patrick Da Costa led off the first platoon. He was killed almost immediately and his platoon broken into small parties by a German attack. Lance-Corporal O’Brien took command of the largest fragment and brought them back to No. 4 Company by bounds. He himself, with a Bren gun, provided the covering for each bound, running the gauntlet every time to catch up with his party and cover them over the next stretch of open ground. The other platoons followed by slightly different routes. Lieutenant Stephen Preston was killed by machine-gun fire from the flank as he came out of the first railway cutting with the second platoon. Major Stewart Richardson, following behind, was wounded over the eye by a mortar fragment, but could still see enough to gather the platoon and return the Germans’ fire, while Lieutenant Bartlet, behind him, led his platoon slightly left down a gully. Lieutenant Brand, with the last platoon and Company H.Q., joined Major Stewart-Richardson and together they launched an attack down the railway line. It was a bloody little battle. Squads of Germans dotted along the railway, who had lain low during the night, now resisted savagely. The German mortars fired indiscriminately along the railway line. They did not seem to care whether or not they hit their own troops, but they must have done, and they certainly killed and wounded numbers of Guardsmen. The German 88-mm. guns by the cross-roads joined in firing air bursts. Through this turmoil of mixed fire, over the bodies of their friends who had been killed the night before, the Guardsmen attacked post after post, driving the Germans back before them into the waiting arms and muzzles of No. 4 Company. Slightly less than half of the two companies who had set out the previous night reached No. 4 Company that morning.

Major Gordon-Watson and Major Stewart-Richardson met under the railway bridge for a consultation. Battalion H.Q. found “the new position not much of an improvement on their old ditch.” Indeed, the whole force—the two companies and Battalion H.Q.—was now surrounded and overlooked. Tank shells from the hill were whistling right under the bridge and exploding on both sides of it, and the whole road was swept by direct machine-gun fire. Heavy 105-mm. shells fell monotonously into the sunken road, blowing in the slit trenches in the banks. Qne shell alone killed and buried a complete section.

Major Stewart-Richardson intended to lead No. 1/2 Company back to No. 4 on the west side of the railway line, the way it had come in the first night attack. He met Lieutenant Aikenhead and, with him, climbed to the top of the cutting. “There,” wrote Lieutenant Aikenhead, “we were bowled over by a shell. Stewart-Richardson was badly hit in the left arm, under the arm-pit. He could not pick himself up. I put him on his back, and he started to fight, and then
stopped. I thought he was dead, but it proved to be otherwise. I dressed his wound, gave him morphia, placed him on a stretcher and covered him with blankets.”

The wounded were lifted into the carriers, the unwounded piled on board. Lieutenant John Bell and Captain Young started the engines and the overloaded -carriers drove “flat out" down the track past No. 3 Company’s old positions to reach the Scots Guards or Grenadiers by Carroceto. Just after they started, Captain Simon Combe noticed a large form lying by the roadside covered by a tarpaulin, heaving like a stranded whale. There could be only one such form on the beach-head. He jumped off the carrier. It was as he thought—Major I. Stewart-Richardson. The huge bulk was bundled on to the carrier and they started off again, rocking from side to side. The Germans made no special effort to stop the convoy; they may have fired at it, but there was already so much metal in the air that nobody would have noticed a little more.

No. 1 Company, under Captain David O’Cock, crossed the valley to “Carrier Farm.” Captain O’Cock had been second-in-command of No. 1 Company for six months in Africa and Italy, but “when I took over No. 1 Company on 5th February,” he wrote, “there were very few faces among them familiar to me. Major Rory Stewart-Richardson, the
Company Commander, had been wounded. Of the platoon commanders, Da Costa was dead, shot through the head, and Grace had his legs broken. Replacements for these two had been John Vesey and Robert Aikenhead, but they were now both missing. The officers I now had were Lieutenants Charles Bartlet and Gallwey. C.S.M. Gilmore—that splendid man—had been killed so that C.Q.M.S. Smilie was made my Sergeant-Major, and Sergeant Moore imported as C.Q.M.S. There had been such heavy losses that there were only twenty-three left of the original 120 who went to make up the Company.’ (ibid)

Twice wounded and Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 11 January 1945), Major Stewart-Richardson relinquished his commission on account of disability and was granted rank of Honorary Major.


Cathal Torquil Hugh Stewart-Richardson, younger brother of the above, was born in 1909 and was educated at Bradfield College. Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant into the Royal Field Artillery on 11 September 1939, he served with them during the Second World War advancing to War Substantive Lieutenant on 1 March 1941. He was awarded the Military Cross for his services the same year during eight months under siege at Tobruk and especially subsequently while taking part in a sortie from Tobruk in support of the Royal Horse Artillery, 20 November to 12 December 1941, and was promoted to Temporary Captain on 8 March 1943.

His Military Cross was announced in the London Gazette of 9 September 1942:
‘This Officer has displayed outstanding powers of leadership and determination at all times while in command of his troop especially during the period from 20 November to 12 December while taking part in the sortie from Tobruk in support of the R.H.A. On frequent occasions while in position for action and also on the move he and his men were subjected to heavy shell fire but he always set a fine example and his coolness, personality and complete disregard for his own safety were largely responsible for maintaining the excellent morale of his troops in very trying conditions. Prior to this period he had commanded his troop for eight months in the besieged Garrison of Tobruk and at all times showed the same tenacity and devotion to duty.’