Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A regimental presentation silver salver appertaining to Lieutenant C. D. Wilson, Durham Light Infantry, 10ins. diameter, with gadroon edging (19 ounces), hallmarks somewhat indistinct but evidently for Sheffield, 1923, the upper surface engraved, ‘Presented to Lieutenant C. D. Wilson by his Brother Officers on the Occasion of His Marriage, 21st October 1925’, immediately below which are engraved 23 facsimile signatures of his fellow officers (list of names supplied on request), polished overall £150-200

Charles David Wilson was born in July 1904, the son of Colonel C. W. Wilson, late Durham Light Infantry, of Longcross House, Surrey. Young Charles was educated at Wellington College and the R.M.C. Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the 1st Battalion of his father’s old regiment in August 1924. Presumably unable to support his wife on a subaltern’s pay, he resigned his commission in October 1927 and joined the London Stock Exchange, but returned to uniform in the 1939-45 War, when he was commissioned into the R.A.F.V.R. as an administrative officer, in which capacity he served until being demobbed in the rank of Flight Lieutenant in 1946. Wilson remarried in 1960, this time to Caroline, the daughter of Sir John Gatt, and retired to the Channel Islands.