Orders, Decorations and Medals

Six: Captain R. C. E. Holmes, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, later Essex Regiment

1914-15 Star (Lieut., R. Innis. Fus.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.); Defence & War Medals; Efficiency Decoration, Territorial, G.VI.R., 2nd issue, the reverse officially dated 1950, extremely fine (6) £250-300

Robert Charles Elrington Holmes was born on 18 March 1890, son of Sir Robert Holmes, K.C.B. Following a private education he attended Trinity College, Dublin, and graduated B.A. in 1913. He was a member of the University’s Officer Training Corps and was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant into the 2nd Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, in August 1914. He went to France in 1915 and was promoted Captain in that year.

He was severely wounded in the right thigh by a gunshot wound on the first day of the battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916. Promoted Acting Major in 1918, he retired in 1919 on post-war demobilisation. During the Second World War he was commissioned Captain in the Essex Regiment in 1939, later serving at the War Office and subsequently with the Royal Artillery, joining the Home Guard in 1943. He received the Territorial Decoration in 1950, and died at Bexhill, East Sussex, on 19 June 1983. Sold with additional research.