Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Second World War civil O.B.E. group of seven awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel A. S. Pilcher, 4/7th Dragoon Guards, late 21st Lancers

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 2nd type breast badge; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal (Lieut., 21/Lrs.); 1914-15 Star (Maj., 21/Lrs.); British War and Victory Medals (Major); Defence and War Medals, mounted as worn, the fourth with officially re-impressed naming, contact marks and edge bruising, otherwise generally very fine (7) £600-800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Tom Gustard Collection of Medals & Militaria and to the 21st Lancers.

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O.B.E. London Gazette 9 January 1946.

Algernon Swain “Algy” Pilcher, who was born in January 1880, was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 21st Lancers in August 1899, he was advanced to Lieutenant in September 1900 and served out in South Africa from February 1901 to May 1902 as an Orderly Officer to his uncle, Brevet Colonel T. D. Pilcher, C.B.

Advanced to Major shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he gained attachment to ‘A’ Squadron, 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards and served out in France and Flanders between late December 1914 and November 1915. Rejoining the 21st Lancers out in India in January 1916, he was appointed second-in-command of the regiment that December, and in November 1921 transferred to the 4th Dragoon Guards (shortly to be re-titled the 4/7th). Pilcher remained similarly employed until being placed on half-pay in the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in June 1927, but served as an Assistant Command Welfare Officer, Western Command, in the 1939-45 War, work that resulted in the award of his O.B.E.

The Colonel, who died in December 1962, was an exceptional horseman, as the following extract from his extensive obituary in The White Lancer and The Vedette illustrates:

‘Algy Pilcher was a superb horseman and his cool judgment, unruffled temper and light weight enabled him to excel in the hunting field, on the race course and as a pig-sticker. Following hounds he seemed always to be, quite effortlessly, at the top of the hunt and as an amateur race rider he had few superiors. Between 1908-1911 he won 22 point-to-point races including the Army point-to-point. He also became the outright winner of the historic 21st Hussars Cup by winning the regimental point-to-point three times. In Egypt, although he accepted mounts on all sorts of good, bad and indifferent horses, he came second in the list of winning amateur riders in his last year. In India both before and after the 1914-18 War he continued to ride in steeplechases with considerable success. When the Regiment marched to Meerut in 1919, he found his greatest enjoyment in pig-sticking. In this sport his courage, horsemanship and eye for country soon brought him to the top rank and a record of 6 first spears in seven consecutive hunts (in good company) gives an idea of his quality. It was on a mare that he had trained to hunt pig that H.R.H. the Prince of Wales won the Hog Hunters Cup in 1922.’