Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War Somme operations M.M. group of four awarded to 2nd Lieutenant J. Scott, Machine Gun Corps, late Royal Fusiliers

Military Medal, G.V.R. (8142 A. Sjt. J. Scott, 1/R. Fus.); 1914-15 Star (8142 Pte., R. Fus.); British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut.), mounted as worn, together with illuminated M.G.C. presentation certificate of service 1915-18, in the name of ‘Lieut. J. Scott’, and an attractive embroidered crest of the Royal Fusiliers, very fine and better (Lot) £500-600

M.M. London Gazette 21 October 1916.

John Scott was born in Dumfries in June 1895, the son of a Church of Scotland lay-preacher, and was working as a correspondence clerk at Carlisle Railway Station, employed by an agent of the Glasgow and South Western Railway, on the outbreak of hostilities. Enlisting in the 18th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers in August 1915, he quickly transferred to the 1st Battalion and arrived in France that November. Gaining steady promotion over the coming months, he was awarded his M.M. for bravery on the Somme, most probably in the 1st Battalion’s costly attack on the “Hill Street” and “West Brompton” features on 21 August 1916, when ‘good shooting at close range’ was noted by the Battalion’s diarist.

Sometime therafter, Scott returned home and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Machine Gun Corps in April 1917, in which capacity ‘he was unlucky enough to sustain serious injuries to both thighs, his right leg, hands and chin’ in October 1918, injuries that resulted in the amputation of his leg and a finger. After a lengthy period of recuperation, and advancement to Lieutenant, he was finally demobilised in August 1919. Settling in Glasgow, where he was employed at Central Station, Scott died in May 1952, aged 56 years - details taken from an accompanying biographical note.