A Great War ‘Western Front’ M.C. group of three awarded to Captain E. Hancock, Royal Garrison Artillery (Special Reserve), attached South African Artillery

Military Cross, G.V.R.; British War and Victory Medals (2.Lieut.) contact marks, otherwise very fine (3)

M.C. London Gazette 16 September 1918. ‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. The section in which this officer was in command was being heavily shelled, during the course of which a 15-in. shell destroyed the drainage system in the vicinity and flooded one gun position, while in the other the gun platform was smashed by a shell. He managed to get them both into action again and kept them firing. He was several times knocked over by shell explosions.’

Ernest Hancock was born in Exeter in 1887, and educated at Exeter School and Oxford University. He was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in 1913 and enlisted as a Private in the Artists Rifles (No.762879). He was commissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery in March 1917, proceeding to France in December 1917, where he was attached to the South African Heavy Artillery depot. He won the Military Cross in an action at Beury on 18 July 1918, and was wounded on 4 September 1918. From 1937 to 1941 he was a circuit Judge for Essex County Court, and for Surrey County Court from 1941 to 1950, retiring due to ill-health, and dying on 26 December 1950.