Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Private G. E. Haggie, Durham Light Infantry, later Yorkshire Regiment, who was killed in action on the Western Front on 2 October 1917

British War and Victory Medals (276537 Pte. G. E. Haggie. Durh. L.I.); Memorial Plaque George Esmond Haggie); Memorial Scroll, ‘Pte. George Esmond Haggie, Yorkshire Regt.’, this last mounted in a glazed display frame, with Buckingham Palace enclosure affixed to reverse, remnants of solder and adhesive to revers of plaque, otherwise nearly extremely fine (4) £200-£240

George Esmond Haggie was born in Sunderland, Co. Durham, on 7 June 1890, and was educated at Radley College and Magdalen College, Oxford. Articled to a firm of Oxford Solicitors, following the outbreak of the Great War he attested as a Private soldier for the Durham Light Infantry in March 1916, and served with them during the Great War on the Western Front from June 1917. Transferring to the 9th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, he was killed in action near to Polygon Wood, Ypres, on 2 October 1917, on which date his company, ‘A’ Company, were in positions at Carlisle Farm. Total battalion casualties this day were 4 officers and 13 men killed, and 52 men wounded and 16 men missing.

Haggie’s Captain wrote: ‘Your son was well like and beloved by all the men, and was a universal favourite.’ (the recipient’s entry in De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour refers).

Buried on the battlefield, Haggie has no known grave, and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium.

Sold with copied research, including a photographic image of the recipient.

Note: Whilst De Ruvigny gives the recipient the rank of Second Lieutenant, no evidence has been found of him having been commissioned, and it is presumably an oversight on the part of De Ruvigny; an understandable assumption given the recipient’s education.