Six: Lieutenant W. G. H. Way, Royal Navy, afterwards Mercantile Marine and Royal Artillery

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, no clasp (Lieut., R.N., H.M.S. Thrush); Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Gambia (Lieutenant, R.N.); 1914-15 Star (60195 A. Sgt., R.A.); British War Medal 1914-20 (A. Sjt., R.A.); Mercantile Marine War Medal 1914-18 (Wilfrid G. W. Way); Victory Medal (A. Sgt., R.A.), the Great War awards later but official issues, the earlier awards with contact marks and edge bruising, nearly very fine, the remainder rather better, extremely rare (6) £1200-1500

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 Lovell collection, Sotheby’s, 16 November 1978 (Lot 564).

Just 80 Queen’s South Africa Medals were awarded to the ship’s company of H.M.S. Thrush, 65 of them without clasp.

Just 34 Africa General Service Medals for “Gambia” were issued to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, four of them to the ship’s company of H.M.S. Thrush - according to the relevant roll, Way’s award was ‘issued by the War Office’.

Wilfred Greville Martin Way was born at Chatham in January 1878 and attended the R.N.C. Britannia as a cadet 1892-94. In August of the latter year, he was appointed to the H.M.S. Centurion on the China Station, in which flagship he served as a Midshipman until July 1897, a period that encompassed the Chino-Japanese War. He was advanced to Sub. Lieutenant in the following year (and to Lieutenant in December 1900), his subsequent career being summarised in the following terms in Lean’s Navy List:

‘Served in Empress of India through the Cretan troubles of 1898. Sub. Lieutenant of Thrush during the blockade of Delagoa Bay 1900 (S. Africa Medal); as First Lieutenant of Thrush was landed as Transport Officer of the punitive expedition of January 1901, under Colonel Brake, D.S.O., against Fodi Kabba (Africa General Service Medal with Gambia clasp); Lieutenant of Intrepid 1903, was at Aden during the troubles of the hinterland boundary delimitation.’

Sadly, however, in November 1909, Way was tried by Court Martial for ‘wilful disobedience of lawful command’ and for ‘drinking intoxicating liquors to excess’, guilty verdicts resulting in dismissal from his ship and him being placed on the Retired List. His service record next reveals that he was employed on the Dredging Staff of the Colony of Southern Nigeria in 1912, but that his application for a Master’s certificate was refused in August 1914, due to insufficient evidence of him having overcome his drink problem. And in February 1915, while serving as a 2nd Mate on a merchantman, he was placed on the sick list ‘suffering from the effects of alcoholism’. Notwithstanding his illness, Way next successfully applied to the Royal Artillery, and was appointed a Temporary Captain in April 1915, which rank he clearly relinquished at a later date. He died in April 1931.