The John Chidzey Collection

A Great War M.C. group of five awarded to Brevet Colonel R. S. Newton, Royal Signals, late Manchester Regiment and Lancashire Fusiliers, and onetime attached Royal Engineers

Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse privately engraved ‘Capt. R. S. Newton, 6th Lan. Fus. attd. 42 Div. Signal Co. R.E., June 5 1917’; 1914-15 Star (2 Lieut. R. S. Newton, Lan. Fus.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt. R. S. Newton); Territorial Force Efficiency Medal, G.V.R. (3 C. Sjt. R. S. Newton, 6/Manch. Regt.), mounted as worn, contact marks and slightly polished, generally very fine (5) £700-900

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The John Chidzey Collection.

View
Collection

M.C. London Gazette 4 June 1917.

Robert Saunders Newton, who was born in Leeds in October 1879, the son of a clergyman and school teacher, was educated at the Rossall School. A member of the 2nd and 6th (Volunteer) Battalions, Manchester Regiment, from June 1899 until March 1912, he retired at his own request in the rank of Colour-Sergeant in the latter year.

Appointed to a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 6th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, in August 1914, he entered the Egypt theatre of war in November 1914 and was accordingly present with his Battalion in the Gallipoli operations of May to December 1915. Heavily engaged in the Second and Third Battles of Krithia, the unit suffered casualties of seven officers and 240 other ranks killed or wounded, prior to being evacuated from ‘W’ Beach.

Next actively employed in Egypt, the 6th Battalion participated in the Battle of Romani in the Sinai Desert in August 1916, and in the subsequent advance on Katia, and in common with other units from the 42nd (East Lancashire) Infantry Division would have suffered heavily as a result of the heat and lack of water - some 50 years later one veteran confessed that the sight of a leaking tap ‘made him squirm’.

In March 1917, as part of the Division’s 125th Brigade, the Battalion was embarked for France, and it is probably at this stage that Newton became attached to the Divisional Signals, R.E. Be that as it may, he would undoubtedly have been present in the ensuing operations near Epehy, and was awarded the M.C. and mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 6 July 1917 refers). Later still, he would have been present in the Division’s many actions in the Ypres Salient and on the Somme, and indeed up until the final offensive against the Hindenburg Line.

Placed on the Territorial Force Reserve in February 1919, Newton was appointed a Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the 42nd Divisional Signals in 1926, and served in that capacity until 1932, latterly in the rank of Brevet Colonel. A keen yachtsman, he retired to the Isle of Wight, where he died at Ventnor in January 1963.