Orders, Decorations and Medals

Four: Serjeant R. L. Wood, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, killed in action, 21 October 1914

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 3 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State, South Africa 1902 (6753 Pte. R. S. Wood, Oxford. L.I.), note initials; 1914 Star, with copy clasp (6753 Sjt., 2/Oxf. & Bucks. L.I.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (6753 Sjt., Oxf. & Bucks. L.I.); Memorial Plaque (Robert Leslie Wood), in card envelope, first with edge bruising, very fine; others extremely fine (5) £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the 43rd/52nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.

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M.I.D. London Gazette 17 February 1915 (French).

Robert Leslie Wood was born and lived in Ewell, Surrey, and enlisted in London. Serving with the 2nd Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, he entered the France/Flanders theatre of war on 14 August 1914. He was killed in action on 21 October 1914, aged 32 years. Having no known grave, his name is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial. He was the son of Thomas and Emily Wood of Mount Pleasant, Ewell. Plaque in original envelope addressed to ‘Mr T. Wood, Mount Pleasant, West Street, Ewell, Surrey’.

Sold with a newspaper cutting mounted on card, ‘“For all say Bob died a gallant death.” This is a sentence in a letter which has been received describing how died a born son of Ewell, Sergt. R. L. Wood, whose mother lives at Mount Pleasant. The deceased was a much respected non-commissioned officer of the 2nd Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. He had been in the army 14 years and saw service in the South African war. .... The writer obtained his information from a lance-corporal in deceased’s regiment, who said: “The 2nd Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry Regiment was ordered to advance, and Bob, with his platoon, was going behind the hedge, when he got wounded in the leg. Although they told him to fall out, he still kept on. ‘Come on lads!’ he said. ‘I am not done yet; its no good staying here.’ He got them through the hedge, into the firing line, and fell shot through the heart. They all say Bob died a gallant death in bringing his men up as he did under a terrible fire. There is no need to try to express my sorrow to you. It is some small comfort to know he died a brave man.” In another letter the same writer says that the lance-corporal ... helped to bury Sergt. Wood near the spot “where he died a gallant death”....’