Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Flight Sergeant A. H. Spencer, Royal Air Force, late Royal Navy, onetime Metropolitan Police, who served as an R.A.F. motor boat Coxswain in the Great War

East and West Africa 1887-1900, 1 clasp, Benin 1897 (Boy 1 Cl., H.M.S. Theseus); China 1900, no clasp (A.B., H.M.S. Arethusa); British War and Victory Medals (217847 F. Sgt., R.A.F.); Coronation 1911, Metropolitan Police issue (P.S.), mounted as worn, occasional edge bruising, generally very fine (5) £400-500

Arthur Harry Spencer was born at Barnet, Middlesex in July 1879 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in August 1894. Joining the ship’s company of H.M.S. Theseus as a Boy 1st Class in January 1896, he witnessed active service in the Benin operations of the following year, and again, as an Able Seaman aboard the Arethusa, during the Boxer Rebellion. Purchasing his discharge in October 1903, Spencer joined the Metropolitan Police, but in July 1916, he re-enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service, and was posted to the Dover Seaplane base as a Leading Mechanic. Service at Dunkirk 1916-17 followed, and by the time he was taken on the strength of the newly established Royal Air Force in April 1918, he had been advanced to Chief Petty Officer Mechanic and qualified as a Coxswain of Motor Boats. His R.A.F. service record reveals that he served in Italy from August 1918 until January 1919, again being employed as a Coxswain, at Taranto. He was finally discharged in April 1920; aso see Lot 474 for another family award.