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

A Knight Bachelor’s group of four awarded to Colonel Sir C. F. Oliver, Leicestershire Regiment: he raised the 2/4th Battalion and commanded it during the Irish Rebellion of 1916

Knight Bachelor’s Badge, 2nd type breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, hallmarks for London 1934; British War Medal 1914-20 (Lt. Col.); Territorial Force War Medal 1914-19 (Lt. Col., Leic. R.); Territorial Decoration, G.V.R., silver, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1911, together with related dress miniature medals for the last three, good very fine and better (7) £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Leicester Regiment and Yeomanry formed by the late Trevor Harris.

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Charles Frederick Oliver was educated at Rugby and joined the Volunteer Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment in 1892. He subsequently became the first C.O. of the 4th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment in 1909, when the change of the Volunteer to the Territorial system took place, and it was under him that this Battalion was trained so that it had the makings of a really first-class unit when it mobilized in 1914. However, Oliver relinquished his command in 1913, and turned his attention to raising the 2/4th Leicestershires, which unit he subsequently commanded in the Irish Rebellion of 1916 and until it went to France. In later life a Vice President of the Old Comrades Association of the Regiment, and an Honorary Colonel of the 44th (The Leicestershire Regiment) Anti-Aircraft Battalion, R.E., T.A., he died in August 1939.