Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Lieutenant P. R. Handscomb, Royal Garrison Artillery, late Middlesex Regiment and Honourable Artillery Company

1914-15 Star (1068 Pte P. R. Handscomb. H.A.C.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaves (Lieut. P. R. Handscomb) good very fine (3) £100-140

Percy Robert Handscomb was born in Hornsey, Middlesex, on 15 March 1896, and enlisted in the Honourable Artillery Company on 9 August 1914. He first served during the Great War on the Western Front with the 1st Battalion Honourable Artillery Company from 23 January 1915, and on 19 May 1915 he was admitted to No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station with pyrexia and enteric fever, and sent home. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in Middlesex Regiment on 21 December 1915 and served in Salonica with the 26th Battalion Middlesex Regiment from 24 August 1916 to May 1918 when he joined the Army Artillery School and transferred to the 143rd Heavy Battery Royal Garrison Artillery on 1 August 1918, serving in Salonica. For services in Salonica in the latter part of 1918 he was Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 5 June 1919), before returning home on 26 January 1919 . He was demobilized on 24 January 1920, and underwent a Medical Board on 11 February 1920, which found that he was permanently unfit for further service and requested him to relinquish his commission on account of ill health caused by wounds.

Percy Handscomb, a close friend of Gertrude Hullett and an executor of her will, was a key witness in the indictment of Dr. John Bodkin Adams for the death of Mrs. Gertrude Hullett. The case was to follow the trial of Dr. Adams in 1957, who allegedly killed Edith Morrell and was involved in the death of Gertrude Hullett, and possibly many, many more. A Stranger in Blood: The Case Files on Dr John Bodkin Adams by Pamela Cullen claims that Dr. Adams ‘may have had more victims than Harold Shipman.’

Handscomb died in Eastbourne on 11 July 1978, leaving £120,000.