Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family group:

Pair: Stoker 1st Class R. T. Lamb, Royal Navy, killed in action, battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916 - when serving on H.M.S. Invincible
British War and Victory Medals (S.S.114708 Sto. 1 R.N.); Memorial Plaque (Robert Thoburn Lamb)

Five: attributed to Private R. T. Lamb, Durham Light Infantry
1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals; Dunkirk Commemorative Medal 1940; together with a ‘LXIV’ Regiment Sports Medal, inscribed, ‘1 Mile 1934’, bronze, all unnamed, some edge bruising and contact marks, very fine (9) £250-300

Medals to father and son.

Stoker 1st Class Robert Thoburn Lamb, R.N., was killed in action at the battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916 when serving on the battlecruiser H.M.S. Invincible. Aged 21 years at the time of his death, he was the son of George Lamb, of Pelton Fell, Co. Durham and the husband of Mary Lamb, of 18 Ellison Villas, Mount Pleasant, Gateshead-on-Tyne.

H.M.S. Invincible was the flagship of Rear-Admiral The Hon. H. L. A. Hood, R.N., commanding the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron. The battlecruisers, in the vanguard of the Grand Fleet, came under sustained fire from battleships of the High Seas Fleet. Receiving a number of hits in quick succession, the Invincible sank with the loss of 59 officers and 961 ratings and civilians; there were only six survivors.

With a printed letter of comfort from Ellen Hood of East Sheen Lodge, Sheen, Surrey, addressed to ‘Mrs Lamb’ and signed ‘Ellen Hood’ in which she writes of the battle in which their menfolk died, this based on the report of a survivor - Commander H. E. Dannreuther. She writes that ‘he is quite sure that the blast of the explosion must have killed all instantaneously, and we know the ship went down in ten seconds. One can be so thankful that these brave men did not suffer, and that there was no time for them to grieve or to think one sad thought.’

With a newspaper cutting announcing the death of Mr George Lamb, of 6 Wilson’s Lane, Low Fell, the father of the elder Robert Thoburn Lamb - who was himself a war veteran, having taken part in the famous march from Kabul to Kandahar in 1880.

Medals to the younger Robert Thoburn Lamb with slip to accompany his W.W.2 medals; another slip re service in the 15th Battalion D.L.I., and the named certificate of award for the Dunkirk Commemorative Medal, with associated slips;