Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War M.M. group of five awarded to Colour-Sergeant F. A. Lewis, London Regiment, who was decorated for gallant deeds in the 1/15th Battalion (Prince of Wales’s Own Civil Service Rifles), and later served in the 16th Battalion (Queen’s Westminster Rifles)

Military Medal, G.V.R. (535 Sjt. F. A. Lewis, 1/15 Lond. R); 1914-15 Star, naming erased; British War and Victory Medals (535 C. Sjt. F. A. Lewis, 15/Lond. R.); Territorial Force Efficiency Medal, G.V.R., with (copy) Bar (535 Sjt. F. A. Lewis, 15/Lond. R.); Efficiency Service Medal, G.V.R., Territorial (6676013 C. Sjt. F. A. Lewis, (M.M.), 16-Lond. R.), very fine or better (5) £500-600

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

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M.M. London Gazette 21 December 1916.

Francis A. Lewis first entered the French theatre of war with the Civil Service Rifles in mid-March 1915, and was most probably awarded his M.M. for gallant deeds on the Somme, his Battalion arriving there from the Vimy sector in September 1916. In four days of heavy fighting at High Wood in the middle of that month, the 1/15th suffered 380 casualties, while in an attack on the Butte de Warlencourt in early October, its ranks were reduced by a further 349 men.

Awarded his Territorial Force Efficiency Medal in AO 162 of 1917, Lewis was demobilised in February 1919, and added a Bar to his T.F.E.M. in AO 177 of 1924, and the award of his Efficiency Medal in AO of November 1935.