A Collection of Medals to the 21st (Yeoman Rifles) Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps

The Great War 1916 ‘Battle of Flers-Courcelette’ D.S.O. group of six awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel G. W. F. S. Foljambe, 3rd Earl of Liverpool, 21st (Yeoman Rifles) Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps, late Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, who assumed command of the Battalion following the death of the Commanding Officer, the Earl of Feversham, at Fleurs-Courcelette on 15 September 1916, on which date the Battalion suffered 57 killed, 323 wounded, and 70 missing

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamel, with integral top riband bar; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Driefontein, Transvaal (Lt. Hon: G. W. F. S. Foljambe, Oxfd: L.I.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Lt. Hon. G. W. F. S. Foljambe, Oxford L.I.); 1914-15 Star (Major Hon. G. W. F. S. Foljambe, Oxf. & Bucks. L.I.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Lt. Col. Hon. G. W. F. S. Foljambe.) the group mounted cavalry style, traces of lacquer, very fine or better (6) £1,600-£2,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the 21st (Yeoman Rifles) Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

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Provenance: Buckland Dix & Wood, December 1993.

D.S.O. London Gazette 1 January 1918.

Gerald William Frederick Savile Foljambe, 3rd Earl of Liverpool was born in London on 12 May 1878, the second surviving son of the 1st Earl of Liverpool, and was educated at Eton and the Royal Military College Sandhurst, being commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Oxford Light Infantry on 16 February 1898. He served in the Boer War and became A.D.C. to Major-General Sir William Knox, K.C.B., commanding 34th Brigade 1901-02. After a period of service in India, where he was A.D.C. to the Governor of Bombay, 1904-05, Foljambe retired, in February 1913, to a life as a Justice of the Peace and horse breeder in Leicestershire.

In the Great War he rejoined his regiment, now the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and served with them at Festubert and Loos. He returned to England in 1915 to become second in command of a battalion just being raised, the 21st (Yeoman Rifles) Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

The Yeoman Rifles served on the Somme in 1916 and suffered terrible casualties at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on 15 September, where, following the death of their Commanding Officer, the Earl of Feversham, the command of the Battalion devolved on to Foljambe. According to Anthony Eden (then a Second Lieutenant in the 21st Battalion, later Earl of Avon and sometime Prime Minister of the United Kingdom), it was for this action that Foljambe was awarded the D.S.O. In his book ‘Another World, 1897-1917’, Eden had this to say of his devotion to Foljambe:
‘He was an admirable choice for the job and he had certainly earned a break, but the battalion and its adjutant were desolate. Foljambe was an excellent trainer of men. As second-in-command and senior regular soldier, he had been chiefly responsible for the battalion's earlier instruction and, since the devastating Somme casualties, it had been his practised hand which patiently and thoroughly reshaped us into an effective fighting unit once again... For myself, I was miserable at parting with the man I so much admired and who taught me all I know. Foljambe's cool, firm efficiency, his intelligent dedication to the job in hand and his refusal to be put off by pretexts, however plausible, set my standards at an impressionable age... ‘

In January 1917 Foljambe was promoted and sent back to England to instruct at a school for commanding officers. For his services during the Great War he was Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 21 December 1917), and awarded the D.S.O. He retired from the Army with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel on 11 February 1919, and, upon his elder brother’s death, succeeded to the Earldom as 3rd Earl of Liverpool, as well as the subsidiary title of Viscount Hawkesbury, on 15 May 1941. He died on 27 July 1967 without issue, and was succeeded to the title by his younger brother. The title is extant, with the present earl being the recipient’s great nephew.