Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Captain N. M. McDonnell, 23rd (2nd Football) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, late 1/16th London Regiment (Queen’s Westminster Rifles)

1914 Star (2355 Pte. N. M. McDonnell, 1/16 Lond. R.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. N. M. McDonnell), very fine and better (3) £250-300

Norman Marcus McDonnell was embarked for France as a Private in the 1/16th Battalion, London Regiment, in the first week of November 1914 where, on the 9th, it was inspected by Lord French, who later noted ‘The Queen’s Westminster Rifles were so good that they were able to be sent to the front immediately’. They were also inspected by Field Marshal Earl Roberts on the 12th, just two days prior to his death. By December, the Battalion was occupying trenches east of the Rue du Bois on the Lille-Boulogne Road - heavily flooded trenches, sometimes waist deep, in which the parapets were constantly collapsing, but a little light relief was afforded the men on Christmas Day, when a truce was arranged with the enemy and gifts were exchanged in No Man’s Land.

McDonnell returned to the U.K. in the following year, where he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 23rd (2nd Football) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, in July 1915, and he likely served with the Battalion on the Somme in August-October 1916. But his final place of employment, as revealed under the correspondence sheet on the back of his MIC, was the Command Gas School, Claycart Hill, Aldershot.