Medals to Casualties of the Great War

1914 Mons Star (Capt. S. Rich, Ches.R.)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals to Casualties of the Great War.

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Captain William Suttor Rich, 1st battalion Cheshire Regiment, died of a wound in the head on the 9th November, 1914. He was the son of William Morton Rich, of Mount Victoria, New South Wales, both his parents being Australians. On his mother’s side he was a grandson of the first Bathurst Suttor, and on his father’s side a grandson of the naturalist in Sir Thomas Mitchell’s Expedition. He was born in Geneva, Switzerland, on the 3rd August, 1879, and educated at “The School,” Mount Victoria, New South Wales.
On the outbreak of the Great War he proceeded to the Continent with the Vth Division of the Expeditionary Force, and fought at Mons, and in the retirement therefrom, during which his battalion lost half its officers. All that remained of the 1st Cheshires during the action at Le Cateau on the 26th August, were in reserve, but found themselves called upon to help in covering the retirement of other troops. Captain Rich, with a Subaltern, a Sergeant, and seven men, held a shallow trench on the left; and with another small party posted on a ridge to the right succeeded in holding up some hundreds of the enemy, and so secured the retirement of the troops, who passed between the parties. It was for this fine piece of work that Captain Rich was first mentioned in despatches. The men of the battalion used to speak of Captain Rich as a fatalist, for when spoken to about exposing himself he laughingly said, “I know I was never born to be shot,” and he appeared, for a time, to have such a charmed life that the men of his company began to believe there was something in his confidence in his future.
But it was destined otherwise, for after several escapes he received a wound in the jaw on the 20th October. Although it prevented him from eating for three days he was still as cheerful as ever, and the life and soul of his battalion. Two days later, while acting as Second in Command of his battalion and defending his trenches at Violaines, near La Bassé, he received his fatal wound during a sudden onslaught by the enemy. With several other wounded officers he was taken prisoner, and removed to a hospital at Namur, and later to the Military Hospital, 4th Army Corps, Douai, France, where he died on the above mentioned date.
Captain Rich was twice mentioned for his gallantry in Sir John French’s Despatches of the 8th October, 1914, and of the 14th January, 1915.
The 1914 Star is rare to Australians as only a small number serving with a medical unit qualified. It is possible that Captain Rich was the first Australian to be killed in the Great War.