Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Chief Yeoman of the Signals H. W. Cummings, Royal Navy

1914-15 Star (193969 H. W. Cummings, C.Y.S., R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (193969 H. W. Cummings, C.Y.S., R.N.); Messina Earthquake Medal 1908, good very fine or better (4) £250-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals The Property of a Gentleman.

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Herbert William Cummings was born in Barton-on-Humber, Lincolnshire in September 1881 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in May 1897. Advanced to Yeoman of the Signals in May 1905, he served in battleship H.M.S. Exmouth from May 1907 to May 1909, in which period he was among those men landed to assist in rescue operations in Messina (Angels in Bluejackets refers). And by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he was serving as a recently promoted Chief Yeoman of the Signals in the battle cruiser Queen Mary, in which capacity he was present in the action in Heligoland Bight and remained employed until early 1915. A brief foray ashore having followed, Cummings next served in the minelayer Princess Margaret (June to October 1915), and, via a brief appointment in the battleship Malaya, the Glory (August 1916 to February 1917), prior to returning to a shore appointment at Portsmouth and being invalided in October 1917; sold with copied service record.