Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Private C. Button, Essex Regiment, who was wounded at the First Battle of Gaza on 26-27 March 1917
British War and Victory Medals (3752 Pte. C. Button. Essex R.) very fine

Victory Medal 1914-19 (2) (3833 Pte. W. J. Bartrop. Essex R.; 3287 Pte. T. Galley. Essex R.) very fine (4) £70-£90

Charles Stanley Button was born in Ramsey, Essex, in 1892, and attested for the Essex Regiment in 1915. He served with the 1st/5th Battalion during the Great War in the Egyptian theatre of War and was wounded at the First Battle of Gaza on 26-27 March 1917, his name appearing in The Essex County Chronicle casualty list of 26 April 1917.

William John Bartrop was born in Dunmow, Essex, in 1898, and attested for the Essex Regiment, underage, at Chelmsford on 10 August 1915. He served with the 5th Battalion during the Great War with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force from 18 May 1916, and was wounded at the First Battle of Gaza on 26 March 1917. He was disembodied on 8 April 1919.

Thomas Edward Galley, of Great Henny, Essex, was born in 1896 and attested for the Essex Regiment on 22 February 1915. He served with the 5th Battalion during the Great War with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in the Gallipoli theatre of War from 9 August 1915, and was reported wounded in the thigh on 23 August 1915. Evacuated to Mudros, he returned to the Battalion in Gallipoli on 6 October of that year.

Galley transferred to the Machine Gun Corps on 14 July 1916, and served with 161st Company, M.G.C., a new company formed from the Machine Gun companies of the 4th, 5th 6th, and 7th Battalions of the Essex Regiment in the Middle East. He served the rest of the War in the Middle East and, embarking from Port Said on 20 May 1919, he was disembodied on 2 July 1919. A character statement in January 1919 lists him as a maxim gunner and describes him as ‘a capable soldier, steady in action, hard working and trustworthy.’