A Great War minesweeping operations M.S.M. group of six awarded to Chief Stoker P. T. J. Davis, Royal Navy

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Lg. Sto., H.M.S. Sappho), single initial ‘P.’; 1914-15 Star (279947 Ch. Sto., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (279947 Ch. Sto., R.N.), initials ‘P. T. T.’; Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.VII.R. (279947 Stoker P.O., H.M.S. Natal); Royal Navy Meritorious Service Medal, G.V.R., Admiral’s bust (279947 Ch. Sto., “Gaddesden”, Minesweeping 1918), the first and fifth with edge bruising and contact marks, nearly very fine, the remainder very fine or better (6) £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Barrett J. Carr Collection of Boer War Medals.

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Collection

Ex Captain K. J. Douglas-Morris, R.N. collection, October 1996 (Lot 477).

255 Queen’s South Africa Medals were awarded to the ship’s company of H.M.S. Sappho, all but one of them without clasp.

Percy Thomas John Davis was born at Wingham, Kent in December 1875 and entered the Royal Navy as a Stoker 2nd Class in July 1895. He subsequently served in H.M.S. Sappho from August of the same year to September 1901, a period that witnessed his advancement to Leading Stoker 1st Class and service off South Africa. He was awarded his L.S. & G.C. Medal in September 1910.

By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Davis was serving as a Chief Stoker in the battleship St. Vincent, but in November of the same year he transferred to the Auxiliary Patrol with an appointment in the destroyer Ure. Having served off the Belgian coast in the same ship 1915-16, he came ashore in October 1917, but returned to sea in the Hunt-class minesweeper Gaddesden in February 1918. And it was for his subsequent services in the latter ship that he was awarded his M.S.M. ‘For services in minesweeping operations between 1 July and 31 December 1918’ (London Gazette 24 March 1919 refers). Davis was demobilised in the same month that his M.S.M. was gazetted.