Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War 1916 Battle of the Somme ‘High Wood’ M.C. group of five awarded to Second Lieutenant G. B. Mason, Gloucestershire Regiment and Machine Gun Corps, late 12th Lancers

Military Cross, G.V.R., reverse contemporarily engraved ‘George Bowstead Mason. Gloster Regt. & M.G.C. High Wood, France, Sep. 3rd. 1916.’; 1914-15 Star (L-8218 L.Cpl. G. B. Mason. 12-Lrs.); British War and Victory Medals (2.Lieut. G. B. mason.) BWM renamed; Defence Medal; together with the recipient’s Great War Silver War Badge, the reverse officially numbered ‘B45041’, good very fine (6) £600-£800

M.C. London Gazette 14 November 1916:
‘For conspicuous gallantry in action, He handled his machine-gun with great courage and determination. Later, during an enemy counter-attack, he armed himself with a rifle, and continued to fire at the enemy until severely wounded.’

George Bowstead Mason was born in Chingford, Essex, on 19 February 1889, and following the outbreak of the Great War attested for the 12th Lancers. He served with them as a Lance Corporal on the Western Front from 17 May 1915, before being commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Gloucestershire Regiment on 16 January 1916. Posted to the 10th Battalion, he served with them, attached to the 1st Company, Machine Gun Corps, during the Somme campaign, and was awarded the Military Cross for his gallantry on 3 September, when the Battalion, in support of the 1st Battalion Black Watch, launched a failed attack on High Wood.

Mason received a Silver War Badge towards the end of the War, and relinquished his commission on the cessation of hostilities. The 1939 Register notes that he was an Officer Reservist living in Sutton, Surrey, and he presumably served at home during the Second World War. He died in Sutton in 1977.

Sold with copied research, including the Battalion War Diary for the period of his M.C.