Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part I)

Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Somaliland 1908-10 (350616 N. Woolfrey, 2nd S.B.S., H.M.S. Philomel) slight contact marks, about very fine £90-110

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals to Royal Naval Sick Berth Personnel from the collection of John Hailey.

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Robert Woolfrey was born in Wareham, Dorset on 31 October 1876. A Hat Presser by occupation, he enlisted into the Royal Navy as a Probationary Sick Berth Attendant on 29 August 1898. He became a 2nd Sick Berth Steward in 1903 and served aboard H.M.S. Philomel in that capacity in the operations on and off the coast of Somaliland during 1908-10. The outbreak of the Great War saw him aboard the pre-dreadnaught battleship H.M.S. Irresistible, and he remained with her until she was mined and sunk in the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915. He was discharged and pensioned in 1920 having achieved the rank of Sick Berth Chief Petty Officer.