Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Captain R. A. Halton, South Lancashire Regiment, late 10th Battalion Liverpool Regiment

1914 Star (2917 Pte., 10/L’pool. R.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.); Defence, contained in leather case, good very fine (4) £140-180

Richard Alexander Halton was born on 19 February 1893 in Latham, near Ormskirk, Lancashire and attested for the 10th Battalion The King’s (Liverpool Scottish) in May 1914, aged 21 years, 3 months. Interestingly, the medical officer who signed his certificate of medical examination on his attestation forms, was Lieutenant Noel Godfrey Chavasse, who later went on to gain the V.C. and Bar and M.C. Entering the Great War as a Private in the 10th Battalion Liverpool Regiment, Halton entered the France/Flanders theatre of war on 1 November 1914 and is reported to have suffered shell-shock on active service in France during December 1914. Halton was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant with the South Lancashire Regiment on 28 September 1915 and was for a time attached to the 20th (Labour) Battalion Cheshire Regiment. In a copied medical report from the 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester, dated 1 July 1916, it was stated that 2nd Lieutenant Halton, 3rd South Lancashire Regiment was suffering from Neurasthenia and that, ‘ He still feels nervous if he is given any work involving responsibility, and he says he has always been a nervous subject, & his general appearance corroborates this’. Halton was promoted Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion South Lancashire Regiment on 1 July 1917. In a second medical report from the Western Command Depot, Prescot, it is stated that Lieutenant Halton had suffered another bout of Neurasthenia in France on 8 October 1917. He was demobilised on 4 April 1919 and granted the rank of Captain, he relinquished his commission on 13 May 1920. Sold with copied service papers.