Auction Catalogue

25 May 2022

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

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Lot

№ 87

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25 May 2022

Hammer Price:
£180

Three: Private J. E. Blower, Grenadier Guards

1914 Star, with clasp (11559 Pte. J. E. Blower 1/G. Gds.); British War and Victory Medals (11559 Pte. J. E. Blower. G. Gds.) very fine (3) £140-£180

James Edward Blower was born in Atherstone, Warwickshire, in 1885 and attested for the Grenadier Guards at Derby on 2 July 1904. Having transferred to the Reserve he was mobilised at London on 5 August 1914, and prior to proceeding overseas was part of the King’s Company, the Officer Commanding of which was H.R.H. The Prince of Wales (later H.M. King Edward VIII).

Blower served with the Grenadier Guards during the Great War on the Western Front from 4 October 1914, and was demobilised on 4 March 1919. He died in Withington, Lancashire, on 23 August 1941.

Sold with the recipient’s Certificate of Transfer to the Reserve; five postcard photographs, all group photographs of the Grenadier Guards, and one other photograph; copied service papers and other research; and an original hand-written Application for ‘No Pte. 11559 J. E. Blower as permission to be absent from his quarters from 4 p.m. until 12 midnight same day, September 8th 1914’, signed ‘Edward’, the signature identical to and believed to be that of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales - the date tallies with the period in which the Prince was with the Regiment in London prior to it proceeding to the Front.